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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.”
Found the guy with U-Haul in his investment portfolio.
Based on your “will someone think of poor U-Haul” slant, in light of hauling children off to Concentration Camps, i feel a strong moral imperative to blast my messaging louder, and see what can be done in a coordinated manner, to inflict maximal financial harm to U-Haul.
You’ve inspired me.
So… I think we’re all on the same page that it’s clearly unethical for the feds to be doing this to people. Taking people out of their homes in the night, even not fully dressed, that horrible. And to be clear, it’s ICE doing that under Trump’s orders.
That said, what you wrote above, that all sounds pretty unhinged. I mean, u-haul is not doing this, they rent vehicles. You might as well be angry at Ford, for making the vehicles. You might as well get angry at Walmart or Amazon fire selling them zip ties.
It seems like your primary role here is to placate, and to encourage people to be concerned, but otherwise inert.
Hand wringing won’t bring down the regime.
Fucking up their processes and being as disruptive as possible will.
The fact remains that U-Haul is now known as a shipping company that delivers right wing extremists to peaceful protests, and one that whisks children off to be deported.
Concentrate less on making me more docile, and more on inflicting financial harm on the complacent and complicit.
I get why you’re outraged, but I don’t think your assumption that the other poster is shilling for u-haul is well founded. As far as I know (from the last time I rented a U-Haul years before this administration), they don’t ask you what you intend to use it for. It is a tool with an obvious purpose—moving your stuff from one location to another.
They also make you sign paperwork saying that people will not ride in the back, so they had reasonable safety in mind within the intended purpose of the unit and the anticipated risk factors within that use case.
It is a good point that they should probably change their policies to log the intended use now that they know their trucks have been used in this way, but it isn’t reasonable to think that they should have anticipated that their moving trucks would have been used by ICE before it happened.
Precisely my point. I don’t think these trucks are being rented to individuals that use them for malicious purposes, not specifically to ICE for use as impromptu prisoner transport.
There’s nothing that I enjoy more than seeing attempts at tone policing, and throwing an ice cold bucket of i don’t give a fuck on it.
Now I will absolutely lean into dragging U-Haul for complicity in the American Holocaust. Predominantly for their stepping up to provide material assistance for hauling children to Concentration Camps.
Meanwhile, you will stand over there and stick berries up your nose while the fascists run wild.
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.
That’s a lot of extrapolation. I don’t care about the company, I only asked a logistical question. I was thinking how they could have prevented this from happening. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s possible.
Having rented a moving truck before, I’ve been asked the basic questions of expected mileage or if you’re driving it out of town and whether you want additional insurance. My point was that there is no method to verify what the customer says about their purposes. Rentals get used for purposes other than house moving all the time and there’s not really a way to stop it.
I have no warmth for the largest moving company in North America, which is why I use a local option when possible, but I also won’t attribute malice for what isn’t possible for them to stop.
It’s entirely plausible this same thing is happening with rental trucks of Penske or small local places and it just hasn’t made the news. Despite naming them, my question had nothing to do with U-Haul specifically, so coordinated action isn’t particularly relevant unless you are advocating everyone buy their own moving truck.
This is all just plea bargaining to claim complacency instead of complicity.
I’ll redouble my efforts.
I don’t see how you think it’s complicity. Has there been any evidence of U-Haul giving trucks en masse to ICE for the purpose of transporting abducted people?
If you are of the belief that U-Haul is complicit, then you should have no trouble answering the question. How does any rental service prevent their vehicles from being used for anything other than the advertised purpose?
Surely we won’t be putting that responsibility on the minimum wage employee working the front desk.
We are simply expressing differences in our priorities and values.
You are putting in extra work here to ensure that the good name of U-Haul remains unsullied.
I am putting in words to discourage businesses from participating in a Holocaust.
But please, go on and tell me more about the plight of U-Haul.
I’ve expressly stated the issue isn’t really about U-Haul. The reason U-Haul specifically is being named here is because that’s the company named in the article. If it was Penske, even your top level comment would say Penske and not U-Haul.
If someone used a charitable organization’s logo-emblazoned lanyard to hang a dog from a tree, do you think it to be the fault of the nonprofit? There are no checks or balances to prevent that level of misuse. This has been my entire point that you continue to ignore in a misguided attempt to paint me as a corporate apologist.
It’s understandable that my initial comment may have been misinterpreted, but doubling down on this tunnel-vision viewpoint isn’t.
From what you’ve said, we do in fact share priorities and values. The bottom rungs of the hierarchy earning a pittance compared to the top should be criminal. Where we differ is my refusal to call any group bad because of something wholly out of their control. Nuance and context is important. So far you haven’t attempted to explain how any rental company can stop fascists from using their equipment after it leaves the lot.
Ans so far, you’ve said sweet fuck all about the children that were hauled off in U-Haul equipment.
But since you lack any sort of vision, l will tell you how I would handle ICE ratfucks using my equipment to commit crimes against humanity. And I would be prepared, and I would be aware of the possibility of ICE possibly trying to use my shit, based on precedence set by the Proud Boys:
Attention Citizens of the United States of America: U-Haul stands in direct opposition to ICE attacks on the American way of life. If you witness any U-Haul equipment in use by ICE, please call us at 555-5555, and we will remotely disable the vehicles.
When the regime falls, and everything is moving really fast, do everyone a favor, and get the fuck out of the way.
youtube.com/watch?v=rgpRlNxQ3HM
Agreed! Truly inspiring!