Texas Newspaper Traces Racist ExTwitter Account To An ICE Prosecutor

Failures

from the never-send-a-non-racist-to-do-a-racist's-job dept

I realize that using the word “racist” to describe an ExTwitter account is pretty much redundant at this point, but there’s something more to this story. It’s not that a racist is using ExTwitter to make racist posts. It’s that a prosecutor working for ICE is, and has been, posting racist content for years on the platform.

But it took some sleuthing by the journalists at the Texas Observer to tie these racist posts to a government employee — a post that certainly shouldn’t be manned by someone who already believes non-whites to be less human than he is.

And yet, here we are, thanks to this reporting, which shows ICE assistant chief counsel Jim Rodden runs the infamous GlomarResponder ExTwitter account. This is the sort of content that’s not only allowed by platform under Elon Musk, but encouraged by the platform’s pay-to-play verification and Musk’s support and adoration of anything that contains a bunch of bigotry.

Since GlomarResponder was first created in 2012, the account has posted hateful, xenophobic, and pro-fascist content. “America is a White nation, founded by Whites. … Our country should favor us,” GlomarResponder wrote last month. “All blacks are foreign to my people, dumb fuck,” the account posted in September of last year. “Freedom of association hasn’t existed in this country since 1964 at the absolute latest,” GlomarResponder wrote four months prior, further clarifying the post was referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in a reply to a comment. “I’m not a commie, I’m a fascist,” GlomarResponder posted a couple weeks later. “Fascists solve communist problems. Get your insults right, retard.”

In August, GlomarResponder posted: “‘Migrants’ are all criminals.” Two months later, GlomarResponder shared an image that reads: “It is our holy duty to guard against the foreign hordes.” Some GlomarResponder posts evoke anti-immigrant violence: “Nobody is proposing feeding migrants into tree shredders,” the account posted in March 2024. “Yet. Give it a few more weeks at this level of invasion, and that will be the moderate position.” And in January: “My WWII vet grandfather didn’t get a chance to kill asians, so he volunteered for Korea. He’d be asking for a short term job with ICE kicking doors and swinging a baton.”

Pretty nasty stuff. Most people wouldn’t want their real names associated with this garbage. People working for the government — especially those handling immigration prosecutions — would definitely not want to be linked to their bigoted social media spewing.

But Jim Rodden fucked up. He carelessly provided enough hints about his current employment and employer that he was sniffed out by the Texas Observer.

“Yeah, I’m in a courthouse wating [sic] on warrants,” GlomarResponder wrote. “Turns out there’s a lot of bitch work to be done to make mass deportations happen.” One day prior, GlomarResponder had posted that he “Can confirm all of those,” regarding a list of cities where ICE was expected to begin deportation operations the next day. “May have a betting pool to see who can guess which one I’m at on any particular day, based on the news,” GlomarResponder wrote.

The paper also used a lawsuit filed in 2021 challenging government mask mandates to nail down GlomarResponder’s real identity. The account mentioned being “party to a lawsuit” involving vaccine mandates. Months down the road, he complained the lawsuit had been vacated by the court. The lawsuit’s formal title? James Joseph Rodden, et al v. Dr. Anthony Fauci.

It should be clear from Rodden’s own posts that he’s incapable of engaging impartially in immigration proceedings. Unfortunately, there’s really not a Brady list equivalent for prosecutors (these lists only prevent or discourage law enforcement officers from testifying in court). And the Supreme Court has made it pretty much impossible to sue any federal official or officer for rights violations, so it’s unlikely Rodden’s bigotry will prevent him from engaging in future prosecutions.

The only hope now is that ICE itself will seek to have him removed. But, given the current administration’s hatred for immigrants and its willingness to turn its bigotry into action, it hardly seems likely ICE supervisors will consider Rodden an impediment to its goals. If anything, officials may see this open bigotry as a force multiplier — one that will ensure maximum cruelty and efficiency as this administration moves forward with its plan to eliminate a large portion of what actually makes this country great: a melting pot that has provided multiple large US companies with reliable employees while simultaneously providing millions of immigrants with more safety and security (job or otherwise) than they could find in their own countries.

Filed Under: glomarresponder, ice, immigration, jim rodden, mass deportations, racism, texas
Companies: twitter, x