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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/02/26/ice-brings-the-war-home/">counterpunch.org</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">ICE Brings the War Home</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Nick Turse</div>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">February 26, 2026</div>
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<div id="gmail-attachment_401019" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-401019" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Screen-Shot-2026-02-24-at-9.01.05-AM-680x493.png" alt="" width="494" height="358" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-401019" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Image by Colin Lloyd.</p></div>
<p>Last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers pulled over
several cars in Eagle County, Colorado. They took the people away in
handcuffs, according to a witness, and left the cars idling at the side
of the road. When family members of the disappeared immigrants arrived,
there was no sign of their loved ones. What they found instead were
customized <a href="https://www.vocesunidas.org/post/ice-left-racist-death-cards-to-intimidate-latinos-in-eagle-county" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ace of spades playing cards</a> that read \u201cICE Denver Field Office.\u201d</p>
<p>When I saw an <a href="https://theintercept.com/2026/02/03/ice-death-cards-ace-of-spades-colorado/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">image of that card</a>,
the memories came flooding back. I\u2019d seen something similar many years
before. Sitting in the U.S. National Archives building \u2014 Archives II \u2014
in College Park, Maryland, sometime in the late 2000s or early 2010s,
I\u2019d spent parts of several afternoons watching film footage shot by \u2014
and of \u2014 U.S. troops in Vietnam back in the 1960s. One of those silent
military home movies always stuck with me.</p>
<p>That short film opened with a Vietnamese woman clutching a child next
to a group of 10 or 15 other children huddled together. They all look
wary. Worried. Scared. The camera lingered on a young girl, perhaps five
years old, clutching a baby. If that girl survived, she would be around
64 years old today.</p>
<p>After several shots of those children, the source of their fear was
revealed. The film cut to a group of foreign young men \u2014 heavily armed
U.S. soldiers. They were tanned and gaunt, smoking and talking, standing
over the corpses of some young Vietnamese men or boys. We see the dead
bodies at a distance, again. Lying together and yet eerily alone. Next,
the film cuts to a collection of weapons \u2014 perhaps a cache found in or
near the Vietnamese village where all of this occurred \u2014 that resembled
old junk more than lethal armaments. The film kept cutting between short
scenes of American troops and Vietnamese bodies until <em>it</em> happened.</p>
<p>I\u2019ve never forgotten the scene that followed because I was initially
shocked that it had been immortalized on film. I was also surprised that
the film had never been destroyed. But then I remembered how ubiquitous
such activity was at the time. How soldiers bragged about it. How it
was covered \u2014 positively \u2014 in the U.S. press. How it even showed up in
the Congressional Record, not as an outrage deserving of investigation
but essentially as a <a href="https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP67B00446R000400080012-7.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">thank you</a> to a manufacturer of playing cards.</p>
<p>In the next scene, we see a soldier pull an ace of spades from what
looks like a big stack of such cards. He\u2019s nonchalant. He\u2019s clearly not
worried about an officer seeing what he\u2019s doing. He obviously knows he\u2019s
being filmed. He reaches down and, as another soldier presses his boot
into the chest of that corpse to hold it steady, he tries to insert the
card into the mouth of one of the dead Vietnamese. It\u2019s apparently not
so easy. It takes a bit of doing, but it proves possible. The next scene
shows an ace of spades sticking out of the dead boy\u2019s mouth. The camera
lingers. It\u2019s oddly and sickeningly cinematic. The following scene
shows another Vietnamese, his face blackened. There\u2019s a battered ace of
spades jammed in his mouth, too.</p>
<p><strong>\u201cImpeding\u201d ICE</strong></p>
<p>Such \u201c<a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/troops-place-ace-of-spades-playing-cards-into-the-mouths-news-footage/2246144215" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">death cards</a>\u201d
\u2014 generally either an ace of spades or a custom-printed business card
claiming credit for a kill \u2014 were ubiquitous among U.S. troops in
Vietnam in those years. Some soldiers, like those in that unit of the
25th Infantry Division operating in Quang Ngai Province in 1967, used a
regular ace of spades of the type you\u2019d find in a standard deck of
cards. But Company A, 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry of the 198th Light
Infantry Brigade, for instance, left their victims with a customized ace
of spades sporting the unit\u2019s nickname \u201cGunfighters,\u201d a
skull-and-crossbones, and the phrase \u201cdealers of death.\u201d Helicopter
pilots, like Captain Lynn Carlson, occasionally dropped similar
specially made calling cards from their gunships. One side of Carlson\u2019s
card read: \u201cCongratulations. You have been killed through courtesy of
the 361st. Yours truly, Pink Panther 20.\u201d The other side proclaimed,
\u201cThe Lord giveth and the 20mm [cannon] taketh away. Killing is our
business and business is good.\u201d</p>
<p>The cards found last month in Eagle County harken back to that brutal
heritage. They were the same general size and shape as those shoved
into the mouths of dead Vietnamese: black and white 4×6-inch cards with
an \u201cA\u201d over a spade in their top left and bottom right corners. A larger
ornate black-and-white spade dominates the center of the card. Above it
is the phrase \u201cICE Denver Field Office.\u201d Below it, you find the address
and phone number of the ICE detention facility in nearby Aurora,
Colorado.</p>
<p>The 10 people taken away by ICE in Eagle County are now reportedly being held in that very same Aurora Detention Facility.</p>
<p>In a recent letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the
Democrats in Colorado\u2019s Congressional delegation called out ICE\u2019s use of
the ace of spades. The card, they wrote, \u201chas long been known as the
\u2018death card\u2019 and has been used by white supremacist groups to inspire
fear and threaten physical violence. It is unacceptable and dangerous
for federal law enforcement to use this symbol to intimidate Latino
communities.\u201d They continued: \u201cThis behavior undermines public trust in
law enforcement, raises serious civil rights concerns, and falls far
short of the professional standards expected of federal agents.\u201d</p>
<p>ICE\u2019s Denver field office offered a boilerplate response to <em>TomDispatch</em> when
questioned about the use of the cards. \u201cICE is investigating this
situation but unequivocally condemns this type of action and/or officer
conduct,\u201d a spokesperson wrote in an email, adding, \u201cOnce notified, ICE
supervisors acted swiftly to address the issue.\u201d The spokesperson said
that ICE\u2019s Office of Professional Responsibility, which deals with
employee misconduct, will conduct a \u201cthorough investigation,\u201d but the
Colorado lawmakers asked for more. Those lawmakers called for an
independent investigation by the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s
Office of Inspector General.</p>
<p>\u201cAs the son of immigrants and the father of two young children, I am
horrified by the abuses being committed by the Trump administration \u2014
from the streets of Minneapolis to right here in Eagle County,\u201d said
Democratic Representative Joe Neguse, a member of the delegation that
wrote the letter. \u201cThese outrageous, aggressive intimidation tactics,\u201d
he added, \u201care meant to stoke fear among our neighbors, and it is
immoral and wrong. This administration must be held accountable, and we
cannot allow this to continue unchecked.\u201d</p>
<p>ICE Denver has a much different opinion. \u201cUnder President Trump and
Secretary Noem, ICE is held to the highest professional standard,\u201d the
spokesperson there told <em>TomDispatch</em>. \u201cAmerica can be proud of the professionalism our officers bring to the job day-in and day-out.\u201d</p>
<p>Americans think otherwise. A clear majority of voters \u2014 63% \u2014
disapprove of the way ICE is doing its job after more than a year of
immigration crackdowns across the United States, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/22/polls/times-siena-national-poll-crosstabs.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a January poll</a> by the <em>New York Times</em> and
Siena University. Sixty-one percent of voters said that ICE had \u201cgone
too far,\u201d including nearly one in five Republicans. The poll was
conducted after Renee Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and legal
observer, was gunned down in Minneapolis by an ICE officer.</p>
<p>Federal immigration officers have shot at least 13 people since September, according to <a href="https://www.thetrace.org/2025/12/immigration-ice-shootings-guns-tracker/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">data compiled</a> by <em>The Trace</em>, killing at least five, including Good and <a href="https://theintercept.com/2026/01/24/minneapolis-killing-border-patrol-ice-alex-pretti/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Alex Pretti</a>, a Minnesota resident who was gunned down by Border Patrol agents last month. Before their killings, Good and <a href="https://theintercept.com/2026/01/24/minneapolis-killing-border-patrol-ice-alex-pretti/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Pretti</a> had been <a href="https://theintercept.com/2026/01/24/minneapolis-killing-border-patrol-ice-alex-pretti/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">observing</a> the activities of agents. Federal officers frequently <a href="https://www.facebook.com/reel/1226461065966696" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">confront</a> and <a href="https://x.com/KimKatieUSA/status/1977428375506768289" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">threaten</a> those observing, following, and filming them for \u201c<a href="https://www.facebook.com/reel/1329375022201281" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">impeding</a>\u201d their efforts. In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCTUIEHpAD0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">numerous prior instances</a>, they had <a href="https://x.com/cwebbonline/status/1944742592530485518" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">unholstered</a> or <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20251208161959/https:/www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-10-31/feds-say-tiktoker-who-was-shot-previously-escaped-a-video-casts-doubt" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pointed weapons</a> at <a href="https://x.com/KimKatieUSA/status/1983220247822741841" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">people</a> who <a href="https://x.com/TheKevinDalton/status/1935540098482733220" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">filmed</a> or <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-11-10/ice-agent-points-gun-at-female-fullerton-police-stop-not-knowing-the-identity-of-the-armed-male" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">followed them</a>.</p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/dhs-policy-threatening-arresting-ice-observers-violates-their-rights" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">report</a> by
the Cato Institute notes that it is \u201ccrucial to understand that ICE and
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) consider people who follow
DHS and ICE agents to observe, record, or protest their operations as
engaging in \u2018impeding.\u2019\u201d It goes on to note that DHS \u201chas a systematic
policy of threatening people who follow ICE or DHS agents to record
their activities with detentions, arrests, and violence, and agents have
already chased, detained, arrested, charged, struck, and shot at people
who follow them.\u201d In the wake of Good\u2019s death, to take one example, the
Justice Department opened an investigation of Good\u2019s widow for
allegedly \u201c<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/us/prosecutors-doj-resignation-ice-shooting.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">interfering</a>\u201d with an ICE operation \u2014 apparently for filming the shooting.</p>
<p><strong>A Death Card Moment</strong></p>
<p>Killing, <a href="https://www.themarshallproject.org/2026/01/07/ice-minneapolis-shooting-renee-good" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wounding</a>, threatening, or investigating observers are just some of the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2025/07/07/ice-raids-la-violence-video-bystanders/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">many abuses</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/10/13/nx-s1-5566785/ice-dhs-immigration-tactics-more-violent?utm_source=bsky.app&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">violent tactics</a> of immigration officers in the era of Donald Trump. Others include <a href="https://abc7ny.com/post/alberto-castaeda-mondragn-skull-was-broken-during-st-paul-minnesota-ice-arrest-says-beating-unprovoked/18560172/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">brutally beating</a> detainees, employing <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/videos-ice-dhs-immigration-agents-using-chokeholds-citizens" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">banned chokeholds</a>, or <a href="https://www.startribune.com/federal-agents-are-deploying-clouds-streams-and-spatters-of-chemical-irritants-what-are-their-health-consequences/601568140" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">spraying chemical irritants</a> on protesters. They also have carried out arbitrary and <a href="https://refugeerights.org/news-resources/court-orders-ice-to-stop-unlawful-arrest-and-detention-of-refugees" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">unlawful arrests and detentions</a>, fired <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/10/23/united-states-federal-agents-use-excessive-force-in-illinois" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">tear gas</a> and <a href="https://x.com/mozkid8/status/1936202906144997499" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">flash-bang grenades</a> into crowds, and <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/trump-ice-smashed-windows-deportation-arrests/https:/projects.propublica.org/trump-ice-smashed-windows-deportation-arrests/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">shattered the windows</a> of vehicles.</p>
<p>Colorado specifically has seen numerous abuses by immigration agents
in addition to the use of those death cards. ICE officers in Colorado
continue to arrest people because of the color of their skin and in
violation of a <a href="https://coloradosun.com/2025/11/25/federal-court-rules-against-ice-arrests-colorado/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">federal judge\u2019s order</a>,
according to a complaint filed earlier this month by the American
Civil Liberties Union of Colorado and two Denver law firms. In November,
U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson found that ICE was
routinely <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2025/11/25/colorado-immigration-arrests-ice-lawsuit-ruling/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">conducting illegal arrests</a> in the state.</p>
<p>\u201cJust in Colorado, we\u2019ve seen ICE agents pepper-spray protestors in the face. We\u2019ve seen ICE drag elderly women on the ground,\u201d <a href="https://www.cpr.org/2026/01/16/what-to-do-ice-immigration-encounter/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">said Judith Marquez</a>,
a volunteer for the Colorado Rapid Response Network and a campaign
manager for the Colorado Immigrants Rights Coalition. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to
wait for another Renee Nicole Good to be murdered.\u201d</p>
<p>Alex Sánchez, president and CEO of Voces Unidas, the immigrant rights
group that took possession of those death cards in Colorado, fears that
ICE might be using such cards as an intimidation tactic elsewhere, too,
but that information about such acts remains unreported because those
affected are unlikely to trust local law enforcement officers, elected
officials, or even mainstream human-rights groups.</p>
<p>In the wake of the killings of Good and Pretti, the Trump administration quickly branded those observing ICE as <a href="https://theintercept.com/2026/02/02/trump-nspm-7-domestic-terrorist-minneapolis-alex-pretti/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">domestic terrorists</a>, and federal authorities insisted that Minnesota <a href="https://www.themarshallproject.org/2026/01/17/ice-minnesota-officer-renee-good" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">had \u201cno jurisdiction\u201d</a> to investigate those killings, while <a href="https://www.kare11.com/video/news/local/ice-in-minnesota/full-press-conference-minnesota-bca-says-they-were-blocked-by-dhs-when-responding-after-fatal-ice-shooting/89-064aeac3-31eb-4189-aa88-25ef09413e4d" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">blocking the access</a> of state investigators to evidence at the crime scene.</p>
<p>As U.S. District Judge Alex Tostrud wrote in an <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26781309-ruling-on-pretti-evidence-tro/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">18-page decision</a>:
\u201cFederal agents collected evidence from the scene\u2026 They won\u2019t share it
with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension [BCA]\u2026 After BCA
agents arrived, federal agents blocked them from accessing the scene.\u201d
Earlier this month, Tostrud, an appointee of President Donald Trump no
less, lifted the emergency order he had issued the day of Pretti\u2019s
shooting that required federal investigators to preserve evidence
gathered at the scene of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/02/us/alex-pretti-shooting-trump-administration-narrative" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">that fatal shooting</a>.</p>
<p>In the absence of independent oversight of the crime scenes, <em>TomDispatch</em> asked DHS if the federal agents who gunned down Good and Pretti had left death cards at the scene of those killings.</p>
<p>The Department never responded.</p>
<p>For more than two decades, <a href="https://tomdispatch.com/william-astore-america-s-forever-wars-have-come-home/">America\u2019s forever wars</a> have
been coming home in large and small ways. But in 2026, death cards made
famous in a war that ended more than 50 years ago \u2014 a war that
America\u2019s president dodged via a draft deferment for seemingly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/us/politics/trump-vietnam-draft-exemption.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">spurious bone spurs</a> \u2014
have made a reappearance. It shouldn\u2019t be a surprise that a war of
extreme brutality rooted in racism would have resonance with ICE any
more than that those macabre calling cards are on brand for a
self-proclaimed <a href="https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-inauguration-speech-war/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">peacemaker</a> president who has made war on <a href="https://theintercept.com/2025/06/23/trump-iran-nuclear-strikes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Iran</a>, <a href="https://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-View/Article/4121311/centcom-forces-kill-isis-chief-of-global-operations-who-also-served-as-isis-2/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Iraq</a>, <a href="https://theintercept.com/2025/12/25/trump-nigeria-isis-attacks-airstrikes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nigeria</a>, <a href="https://theintercept.com/2025/02/04/trump-airstrike-somalia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Somalia</a>, <a href="https://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-View/Article/4074572/centcom-forces-kill-an-al-qaeda-affiliate-hurras-al-din-leader-in-northwest-syr/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Syria</a>, <a href="https://theintercept.com/2026/01/03/venzuela-war-nicolas-maduro-airstrikes-caracas-trump/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Venezuela</a>, and <a href="https://theintercept.com/2025/03/26/signal-chat-yemen-strike/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Yemen</a>, as well as <a href="https://theintercept.com/collections/license-to-kill/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">on civilians in boats</a> in
the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. While he might not have actually
dealt those cards in Colorado, it\u2019s hard not to see them as Donald
Trump\u2019s death cards.</p>
<p><em>This piece first appeared on <a href="https://tomdispatch.com/ice-brings-the-war-home/">TomDispatch</a>.</em></p>
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