Willem Van Spronsen was 69 years old when he was shot dead by Tacoma, WA, police last weekend. He was caught trying to light the vehicles ICE and CBP would use to conduct its weekend raids in the area — the vehicles the government would use to transport captured undocumented people to its concentration camps — on fire.
Willem Van Spronsen was, according to his alleged manifesto, himself an immigrant, raised in post-war France and the Netherlands. According to people who say they knew him, he was a “teacher” in his community.
He is likely the first US citizen to die in a counter-ICE/CBP action.
The Narrative is already spinning around whether what Van Spronsen did counts as terrorism. The Discourse hopefully won’t spin up around whether what he did was morally wrong. Because to be clear: what Willem Van Spronsen did was in no way morally or ethically wrong. It was at worst an act of desperation by a person of deep conscience, and the only surprising thing about it is that his was the first this late in the game.
I’m sick to my stomach over this so I’ll just cut to the chase: Immigration and Customs Enforcement should be abolished, right alongside Customs and Border Patrol. It should be reduced to a footnote in history. I don’t really care how this is done, but it is a moral imperative that it gets done as soon as possible before more children separated from their parents die from malnutrition.
The people who work willingly for CBP/ICE should not be arrested and tried for crimes against humanity (though that argument is tempting) and sentenced to imprisonment or death; as of now they should just be fired, and prevented from obtaining any work more profitable than retail or fast food. If you think that’s intolerable you haven’t met the folks online who really love invoking guillotines into conversation.
The concentration camps along the borders of this country should of course be closed; the sites they once stood at should be burned to the ground once they’ve been emptied, and the earth salted. Small concrete or steel monuments to our great shame should be erected at each location lest anyone forget that we did there.
What about the prisoners that occupy those camps? Well, they should be let go immediately. They should be able to determine whether they want to stay here or go somewhere else; because in addition to freeing every single undocumented person and reuniting them with their families, the borders should immediately and without delay be opened. If you want to live in the United States, fuckin go for it, my friend.
This is the call to action I so sorely did not want to see: someone’s life in exchange for everyone’s action. But it happened, and we can’t sit idly by any longer. I’ll leave you with an excerpt from Van Spronsen’s alleged manifesto:
“When I was a boy, in post-war Holland, later France, my head was filled with stories of the rise of fascism in the 30s. I promised myself that I would not be one of those who stands by as neighbors are torn from their homes and imprisoned for somehow being perceived as lesser.
“You don’t have to burn the motherfucker down, but are you just going to stand by?”