I am an ICE guard and I sleep very well through my night terrors, thank you.
It seems that everywhere I go these days, whenever people find out what my day job is, a look of horror dawns on their faces. “You work for ICE?” they gasp. “How do you live like that? What ICE does is terrible!”
Well, Mr. and Mrs. Virtue Signalling, I live very well, thank you. As a matter of fact, I have no trouble sleeping through my night terrors at all.
I won't apologize for standing up for law and order in this country. By knowing that I did my part to separate a four-year-old from his mother with no plan or intent to reunite them, I'm able to peacefully nod off to sleep shortly after vomiting.
What liberals need to understand is that there are rules in this country. Rules are guidelines for how to behave, and there are consequences for breaking them. If you cross the border illegally, the consequence is that we get to lock you and your children up. Just like if my daughter forgets to take her shoes off inside the house, the consequence is that I scream at her while waving my handgun until I hear my wife begging me to stop and wailing “I don't even know you anymore!”
Do I think that everything is going perfectly? Of course not. If it were up to me, I would absolutely give clean diapers and soap to the 500 kids I have locked up in a room the size of my kitchen. But unfortunately, I can't please everybody and so I just have to do my best–telling a seven-year-old to clean up feces and slamming my arm repeatedly in my bathroom door until I'm numb to any pain.
I only wish the protestors who gather in the parking lot chanting “Abolish ICE!” could see that we are human beings, too. Each night, I whisper “goodnight, mis niños” to the children lying on the floor before I turn on the blinding fluorescent lights and crank down the temperature to a cozy 58 degrees. Then, perfectly satisfied with my work, I go home to my family, sitting in the closed garage for a good 45 minutes with the engine running to reflect on a life well lived.
Do I know that half the country hates me? Yes, but I still carry on with my job. I don’t show up to an investment bank and tell people where to put their money; I don’t waltz into a dentist’s office and tell them which teeth to pull. So when people tell me things like, “you can’t leave a child in a locked van for almost two days straight,” I smile, nod politely, and reread the Wikipedia entry on PTSD for the 800th time.
So there is no need to worry about me, America. My fellow ICE guards and I don't feel guilty for working in what some are calling “concentration camps”–a patently offensive description. Concentration camps are run by unflinching sociopaths and spineless enablers. That could never happen in America as long as people like me continue to show up to work in the morning and return home at night to swallow six different types of pills to keep the tears inside.