Tom “Bag o’ Cash” Homan says people killed by ICE should have complied

They did not need to comply harder. They complied to death.

Trump Border “Czar” Tom Homan’s message is clear: when masked men come for you, surrender first and ask questions after they bash your head into the pavement.

Make the violence more convenient for the government, or suffer the consequences? This Republican talking point is pretty ripe, as the party of guns and guts now thinks letting the Gestapo stomp your head is the American way.

Recent ICE-induced deaths include Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Houston construction worker and father of three who ICE acknowledged was not the intended target, and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian man fatally shot during an ICE stop in Maine. Guerrero had a legal work authorization and was not the target of the warrant, according to activists and witnesses.

Scolding dead people for failing to comply with the agents who were not supposed to be after them in the first place seems to be part of the cycle. Masked men with guns kill “the wrong guy,” the victim pays for it, and Tom Homan shows up on television to explain that the real problem is manners.

More than 50 people have died in ICE custody since Trump returned to office, according to Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights. Others have died during ICE enforcement operations. They did not need to comply harder. They complied to death.