The agents of the U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement Agency probably think that they look like RoboCop when they’re rounding up brown people at a Home Depot in Los Angeles. Sadly, they just look like a round person who watches RoboCop.
Right now, the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign is the most talked-about issue in Los Angeles, even as the summer movie season begins and the makers of blockbuster action movies eye their billion-dollar box office returns. This is the time of year when Hollywood movies, partially funded by the U.S. military, present heart-pounding, high-octane and glamorized portrayals of violence committed in the name of the federal government in hopes of increasing recruitment numbers. With any luck, this year’s slate will inspire able-bodied and impressionable young men to join the Marines while their more portly counterparts resign themselves to rounding up construction workers and car-wash employees for a living.
During his appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night, comedian Patton Oswalt gave guest host Diego Luna his surprising take on the much-reviled ICE agents who, right now, are busy committing thousands upon thousands of extrajudicial kidnappings of U.S. residents, documented or otherwise. While many voters and human rights organizations have criticized ICE forces for being the modern-day gestapo and having no respect for due process, Oswalt empathizes with the immigration agents because he knows what it’s like to walk a mile in their shoes.
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Well, maybe not a full mile.
“One thing that I was realizing when I watched the footage of those ICE agents that are out there — and, again, I hate what they’re doing,” Oswalt commented when the conversation turned to current events, “but in a weird way, I feel bad for ICE agents because it’s so clear that this was their fantasy, to dress up like Judge Dredd and go out and make justice.”
“But the thing is, they’re shaped like me!” Oswalt said of the sizable immigration enforcers who break up families in between KFC family buckets. “They look like Pillsbury Storm Troopers! Like the pudge is kinda sticking out of the body armor, so they all look like — remember when you open a tube of like Pillsbury dough, and the dough just goes *blows raspberry* like that? That’s them!”
Then, in a sit-down, come-to-Jesus moment, Oswalt turned to the camera and spoke directly to the ICE agents who share his pant size, telling them, “Hey guys, it’s Patton Oswalt from Ratatouille. I know that you love characters like Judge Dredd and Mad Max, cool guys in body armor who are out there bringing justice to the lawless world. I like them too! I’m a big comic book nerd!”
“But I realize that, now you’re out there, and your knees are hurting. And your hips are screaming. And your back is aching,” Oswalt told his BMI buddies, “And you’re thinking, ‘Why didn’t I just stay home and play Red Dead Redemption and eat SunChips instead of coming out here in the heat where everyone’s booing me and I’m realizing I’m the biggest douchebag on the planet?’”
However, Oswalt told the doughboys in blue, there is still hope for them, so long as they return home to play video games and eat junk food like they know they want to. Oswalt implored them, “Please, for the sake of the country, for the strength of America, sit, and snack!”
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