When Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sent some 3,000 agents to Minneapolis, the agency gave the effort a military-style name: Operation Metro Surge.
The name has turned out to be a rhetorical sleight of hand.
The word “surge” implies a sudden and powerful movement that just as quickly subsides, and the Trump administration has lately acted as though it’s already over, announcing that it’s moving hundreds of agents from the state, demoting Border Patrol “commander-at-large” Gregory Bovino and formally ending the operation.
But very little has actually changed in Minnesota.
Within hours of Homan’s declaration, local officials took to social media to share details about abductions that were still taking place. They were no more humane or any safer than the others. Minnesotans also noticed that an unspecified number of ICE agents will remain in the state, including border czar Tom Homan himself. Homan also indicated that ICE may replicate the tactics used in Minnesota in future large-scale operations.
As a sociologist who studies violence, I recognize the method the Trump administration is using. It’s called “symbolic compliance,” and it refers to an institution that responds to a backlash against its illegal behavior by pretending to take action without making any substantive changes, like a bully caught by the playground monitor who apologizes but doesn’t give back your lunch money.
Over time, these symbolic victories set a new, lower bar.
The concept of “symbolic compliance” was developed by Lauren Edelman to explain why race discrimination is so common in social institutions where it is also illegal. She found that institutions violating civil rights can persuade the public to abandon accountability efforts if they offer up symbolic victories. Over time, these symbolic victories set a new, lower bar for compliance with the law, eroding our legal rights.
Sociologists have found examples of symbolic compliance in essentially every institution that regularly hurts people. Greenwashing ad campaigns rolled out by corporations that pollute our communities. A new customer service hotline created by a health insurance company while it continues to deny claims for necessary medical services. Sexual harassment trainings conducted by human resources departments that refuse to discipline the abusers in their workplace.
The problem with symbolic compliance isn’t just that these actions don’t go far enough. It’s that it sets the stage for escalations in violations of legal rights while onlookers are fooled into believing the problem is fixed. Often critics of an institution will defend it, encourage other people to “give it a chance” and wait to see if it will start behaving better. The new symbolic efforts accomplish nothing, and the baseline of acceptable behavior becomes permanently lowered. It is in those moments of hesitation that we all lose. The bad actor avoids real accountability, the new symbolic efforts accomplish nothing, and the baseline of acceptable behavior becomes permanently lowered. At this point, it is obvious that the Trump administration’s primary response to outcry over civil rights abuses in Minnesota has been symbolic compliance. There have been countless soundbites from government officials — including President Donald Trump — acknowledging that ICE has gone too far, but the administration has pushed forward with sweeping deportation efforts. There is rapidly accumulating evidence that the tactics used in Minnesota are quietly becoming commonplace and there are plans for large-scale operations in every state in the country. Immigration agents are still breaking into homes without judicial warrants, destroying public and private property in the process. They are still using racial profiling to determine who to detain and ignoring evidence that many, if not most, of those they abduct have every legal right to be in the country. They are still refusing oversight of detention centers that are overcrowded, unsanitary, and unsafe. They are still targeting anyone they designate as a protester, despite their lack of jurisdiction to arrest any U.S. citizen, and the clear First Amendment protections for observers to bear witness and even protest their government’s actions. As with Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, the Trump administration wants to convince America that this is just a quick, temporary action. But when the government restricts our freedoms, it’s never temporary.
Nicole Bedera is a sociologist, author of "On the Wrong Side" and co-founder of the anti-violence consulting group Beyond Compliance. 
