February 21 Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today released directives that pave the way for deporting potentially millions of people.
Trump’s policies expand the number of people prioritized for deportation enormously. Any immigrant convicted or suspected of any minor “crime” will now be considered an “enforcement priority”. Anyone law enforcement determines to be a “risk to public safety” can be hauled in and deported. Trump’s plan empowers Immigration Customs and Control with “expedited removal”: any arrested immigrant who has been in the country two years or less can be deported without any pretense of legal procedure. Perhaps the most sadistic elements of Trump’s plan: parents who are determined to have paid to bring their children across the border so the family can be together will be subject to prosecution. And many of those children will be subject to deportation. About 11 million people are potentially in the crosshairs of these hateful measures.
A border fully “weaponized”. Terrified children separated from their families by armed police. Checkpoints where people are dragged away because of their accent, their skin color, the kind of clothes they wear. Pre-dawn blockades of immigrant communities. These nightmare proposals represent another lurch toward the fascist future of Trumpworld. It is not a world anyone should accept. This attack must be met with massive opposition. It must be defeated. This regime must be ousted.