Superman’s new work at Ice is the perfect torsion of American intrigue | Movie theater

Last week, actor Dean Cain, known for having depicts Superman on the television program of the 1990s, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, announced that it was an oath as an American agent of immigration and customs application (ICE).

Cain said he joined the agency because ice agents, which he described as the “real heroes”, were vilified. He also published an ice recruitment video on Instagram with Superman’s theme song playing in the background, and promoted remuneration and the generous advantages that accompany an ice agent.

Cain is not the only one. Some pro-Trump celebrities have also defended or praised the ice. And Dr. Phil scored on ice raids in Chicago and questioned migrants apprehended in front of the camera.

But by putting aside the irony according to which the man of steel himself was also an undocumented stranger, why would Superman be so eager to join the draconian raids of the Ice targeting immigrants?

On the one hand, we must understand the attraction of these ice operations.

The visuals of masked federal agents, jumping armored vehicles, in military-style equipment and quickly descending what ice lovers would claim to be terrorists, rapists, pedophiles, murderers, drug traffickers and gang members, are deeply comforting for many in the United States.

This is a consequence of a long history where militarized police has acquired a semblance of sacrosquisite in the country.

It is well documented that contemporary police in the United States have its origins in slave patrols. This means that the development of the American criminal justice system has its roots not only in slavery, but also in the conviction that the revolts of the slaves or any effort to upset the racial hierarchy in American society are an existential threat to the established social order.

Over the years, the progressive militarization of the police has drawn its justification from the periods of existential crisis perceived in American society. Whether it is the development of the crime organized during the era of prohibition in the 1920s, uprisings during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, or when President Richard Nixon declared a drug addiction “public enemy n ° 1” requiring an “completely offensive offensive”, these served as a pretext for a strong military style police.

This militarization of the police was supported by article 1033 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Exercise 1997, that President Bill Clinton signed, allowing local organizations for applying the law to access surplus military equipment from the Ministry of Defense (DOD). The 1033 program allowed the DOD to “sell or transfer”, among other things, vehicles protected by embuscles, grenade launchers, planes and helicopters.

This love story with ice is also a cultural phenomenon. The hard, violent and impetuous cop, ready to move away from the limits of the law to protect the innocent civilians of evil (the Muslim terrorist, the Soviets, the Germans) is a must -have Hollywood and American television. This has standardized the perception that to protect America from these existential threats, it is sometimes necessary to use a deadly force or extrajudicial actions, as cruel or excessive.

Of course, in all this, we cannot ignore the deep and anti-immigrant feelings that lead to ice support.

In my adult life, this xenophobia has taken many forms.

As a 18-year-old student in the north of New York in the early 2000s, I was the physical quintessence of everything that is evil and anti-American when the country waged its “world war against terrorism”. At the time, I remember a student colleague justifying the additional security checks that I had to suffer in airports, saying, “You cannot ignore the fact that you look like people who hate us.”

At the end of the twenties as a doctoral student in Copenhagen, I had to hear a senior colleague say: “You are Indian. I guess your competence violated women. ” He referred to the rape and murder of Gang Delhi Bus 2012 who received world attention.

Globally, we have also seen a proliferation of reality TV emissions like Border Security: Australia’s Front Line and nothing to declare the United Kingdom which claim to show the reality of the multiple threats that Western countries encounter at their borders.

It is now almost common to imagine the figure of the migrant as a ship for everything we fear and hate.

When Syrian refugees arrived in Europe in 2015, they were described as a security threat, a burden for public services and a threat to European values.

Last year, the United Kingdom saw a wave of far-right anti-immigrant riots after a mass of stab wounds in Southport. The riots followed false claims that the striker was a Muslim migrant. Rioters have attacked companies belonging to minorities, immigrant houses and hotels housing asylum seekers.

This year, Ireland has seen anti-immigrant attacks against the South Asians, including a six-year-old girl who was struck in the face and struck in the genital region. It would seem that these attacks were fueled by anger against affordability and the housing crisis.

Such anti-immigrant feelings have been endemic to American policy.

Although speech during the Obama years was not as antagonistic, the abolition of undocumented migrants was always a political priority. President Obama was called “chief deposit” and, in 2012, the deportations culminated at 409,849. That said, the same year, he also signed the delayed action policy for children’s arrivals (DACA), allowing undocumented migrants who have been brought in the country as minors to ask for “renewable periods of two years of action deferred by expulsion, which allows them to remain in the country”. DACA also made them eligible for work permits.

Deportations were also a priority during Biden years. During the year 2023, the American immigration authorities expelled or rendered 468,000 migrants, exceeding one year during Trump’s first term.

That said, during Trump’s mandate in the White House, anti-immigration rhetoric was vicious, and the republican chief does not hesitate to portray migrants as synonyms of crime and an existential threat to the demographic, moral and cultural fabric of the United States.

This framing of immigrants as a problematic presence in American society served as a pretext for the plan of Trump to build a wall through the American-Mexican border to stop the movement of undocumented migrants, the ban on traveling on citizens of several Muslim countries and a suspension of the admission program for American refugees.

Trump’s second term was only the continuation of these policies. With the current genocide in Gaza and the simultaneous visibility of the Solidarity Movement of Palestine, the anti-immigration movement merged with anti-Palestinian racism, ice also targeting pro-Palestine activists which, according to the Trump administration, have views contrary to American values.

With all this in the background, it is therefore logical that an actor who once played an undocumented stranger on television and who himself has a Japanese heritage would join Ice. In the Trump era, targeting the tired and poor masses who aspire to breathe freely seems to be the American way.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.