Overnight on Tuesday, Sept. 30, federal agents from different agencies raided an apartment building on the South Side of Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city by population. Armed federal agents in military fatigues busted down doors, pulling men, women and children — some of them allegedly naked — from their apartments, residents and witnesses told the Chicago Sun-Times.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said agents with Border Patrol, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested 37 people without legal immigration status, including some with criminal records. The spokesperson claimed the South Shore neighborhood is “a location known to be frequented by Tren de Aragua members and their associates.”
“Due to the size of this operation, DHS law enforcement is continuing to gather more information on those arrested and will provide more information when available,” the spokesperson said. “Federal law enforcement officers will not stand by and allow criminal activity flourish in our American neighborhoods.”
Ignoring your insults towards me, I ask you this question:
Was the fertilizer company responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing because their product was used in a way it wasn’t intended for? After the tragedy, improved monitoring systems were created to track people who were buying industrial amounts of fertilizer without a clear need for using it in agriculture, but before the bombing, they did not think it would be used in that way and there were no safeguards in place.
In my opinion, that’s where we are with U-Haul. Their product has been used in a terrible way that it wasn’t designed for—what they do next will be the thing I judge them for.
Isn’t it disheartening to engage a conversation where the other party moves the goalposts at every opportunity while claiming moral superiority? They just invoked the Proud Boys as a precedent setting group as if that’s something to be aspired to.
They’re not moving goal posts. They’re repeatedly making the same point over several examples.
It’s not complicity when a customer uses your product outside the ToS. It was also suggested up the chain here that the person renting and picking up the vehicle may not be disclosing their employment nor the use in raids.
If either of these are not the case, or if Uhaul takes no measures to prevent this in the future, then Uhaul is complicit.
Oh I wasn’t referring to WeirdGoesPro themselves. I replied to them because they had a similarly circular conversation with MushuChupacabra as I did.
I agree. The employment and purposes of the individual renting the trucks were unlikely to have been disclosed while the vehicle was being rented.
I think that falls more to complacency than complicity, but I see your point. As I’ve written in a few other comments here, I’m not sure what ‘measures’ could be implemented by any rental company to prevent undisclosed use of their vehicles.
There are only two routes I can think of to effect this situation. Some reactionary method; barring the listed customer from future rentals if the service becomes aware of the misuse, maybe install dash cameras in some tamper resistant way. Or a preventative method; ending rentals entirely and pivot to a full service moving company.
If you have a suggestion, I would like to hear it - it’s why I asked the question in the first place, and so far haven’t seen an answer to it.
They wouldn’t really have a way if preventing this from happening altogether. So you have to increase the risk to the lessee for bad behavior.
Point of sale is the only place they ID the customer. At that point you determine whether the lease is to a legal entity (Gov/corp) or Private. If the trucks were contracted to DHS or a contractor then this is moot and fuck 'em. If they were contracted as a private lease to an agent concealing the purpose then a couple options could be:
I’m unsure if Uhaul is franchised, but in that case there is less clarity in the options. Corporate could pressure them depending on contract language.
End if the day, unless it is seen as an economic threat to the brand, nothing will likely be done.
Note: i don’t usually think that punitive action is useful but it’s all these bastards know.
Indeed. I’m sure there is already language in the terms against driving the vehicles with people in the cargo space. Breaking this could result in some penalty. If the company found, of course.
Unfortunately, if they were to bundle up dozens of these individuals renting trucks on behalf of ICE and were then able to go after the agency itself for this practice of purposefully violating their TOS, the opposition is the government. I wouldn’t put it past the current administration to nationalize U-Haul as punishment in such a situation.
I agree about the punitive damages. There should be life long consequences for everyone involved with ICE.
Tl;dr: Please treat U-Haul gently, like a baby bird. They are completely innocent and helpless.
Because the health and wellbeing of U-Haul is the most important thing to focus on right now.
Nice work.