Chapter 2: YOU CAN’T STOP MELTING ICE

They moved from the car to the conveyor belt. From a name to a place in the queue. The conveyor belt doesn’t distinguish. It doesn’t have settings for a citizen or the father of a child who still holds his son’s bear. It has one speed. One direction. It feeds the ICE machine the way all machines are fed: with whatever is in front of it. American citizen. Mother of four. Father who works two jobs. Paraplegic veteran who lost his legs in a war fought for the very freedom being stripped from him now. Catholic. Jewish. Somali. Black. White. There are decent people next to the murderer from Guadalajara, Mexico, who escaped his own fate back home, only to bring his violence here. There is a grandmother from your church who deserves none of this. Saints and sinners standing next to each other. All moving at the same speed. All heading to the same place. The ICE machine processes. The gears turn. The system doesn’t need to understand you. It only needs to move you forward. This is the sl