I played an ICE agent for three hours. I got face to face with people on the street and asked for their ID. When they said they had a driver’s license, I barked at them, “So do immigrants — I need to see your passport or birth certificate.”
I told people holding protest signs that they were un-American and to put them away, or they were going with me. I watched as people’s faces changed color and their jocular attitudes faded, and more than one person told me that even knowing I was an actor didn’t keep the experience from being frightening or uncomfortable.
At Glenn Terry’s behest, I was recruited to play one of three ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents in his solemn staging of Camp Cruelty. His director’s notes were to make it real — the “immigrants” we marched into the pen to stand in the hot sun were given no water, and the guards were to shut them up if they were chit-chatting. The cadence of protest chants of the crowd encircled us, interspersed with minutes of solemn silence.
I decided to take my job seriously—to be a method actor and experience internally what an ICE Agent was thinking and feeling. I studied them on numerous YouTube videos, and copied their minimalist uniforms with their name covered up. I carried handcuffs, zip ties, a radio, bear spray, dark glasses and a mask. My unit’s emblem was a skull sewn to my upper sleeve — in my case, it was actually a Grateful Dead patch, which is all that would give me away as an imposter.
I pushed back hard on my feeling of solidarity and sense of empathy — I wanted to know what kind of dark place one must inhabit to want to capture and throw people out of our country into undoubtedly worse situations. Big scary dudes wearing masks chasing and incarcerating people who don’t understand our yelled instructions and our bogus or non-existent paperwork. I felt nausea and disgust sweeping over me, and didn’t want to be caught dabbing my eyes.
When our prisoners found a wire-cutter that somebody had left in the pen and freed themselves, the rush I felt was real, and disrobing from my ICE costume was a breath of fresh air.
So, I still don’t know what motivates an ICE Agent to go to work, but I’m looking for an opportunity to get in their way.
<As with other ICE Agents, I don’t have a name.>