"We're not about breaking up families."-- George W. Bush
Donald Trump is about breaking up families.
It's under the radar in the US media, but it's not under the radar in Latino, or even US-based Latino subsidiaries.
DHS and ICE agents are becoming the gestapo in the eyes of a vast swath of our Latino population, along with the ensuing constant, consuming fear that occurs anytime a population is under threat by law enforcement with an inhumane agenda.
Yes, we'll go as far as to say kristallnacht differs only as a matter of degree.
The personal anecdotes are everywhere. They even made it to Spanish language religious television, where frightened children are taught to turn to God to comfort them. They're afraid their parents will be taken away.
These are the kids derisively called "anchor babies" by the staunch, hugely ignorant nativists that Trump attracts.
We believe logic will tell you that with a US Latino population of 56.6 million, for every one of these stories that makes it to print, there are thousands out there that don't.
We've written about one such case already, Dennis Rivera Sarmiento.
In that case, we were actually shocked to hear that ICE in Houston threatened retaliation against local institutions if they didn't proceed to hand Dennis over for deportation, but this DHS/ICE attitude has only been confirmed upon further investigation.
The reality is if nobody had intervened on his behalf, Dennis would be in Honduras right now, life as he knew it and a bright future torn away by vindictive DHS/ICE people expressing the hostility that infuses their "leader".
Before we proceed further, we want to say that we know there are good agents out there, working hard, day in and day out. We're not talking about them. We're talking about a proactively angry culture being created by those "higher-ups" with enough influence to do so.
The main force behind the Nazi shit is none other than Trump's current White House Chief-of-Staff, John Kelly. Well, he certainly appears to be good at knocking heads together, figuratively, and probably literally. The news always contains "fun" surprises about Trump's inner circle.
We're going to recount several more current events that, we can be sure are the tip of the iceberg, and will be so until the menace currently occupying the White House is gone.
All of it points to the completely farcical nature of Donald Trump's comment during the campaign regarding keeping "the good ones". Presumably, those that aren't rapists and murderers.
Every one of these stories involves deliberate targeting of "the good ones".
To begin, we have:
Father of three, in the US since 2004 with no criminal record calls police to report a trespasser.
The trespasser (who was, in fact, trespassing) is not arrested. The man who called for help, however, is arrested and taken to a detention center.
Traumatized kids and law-abiding people now afraid to report a crime. Good job!
Immigrant faces deportation after calling police for help
Next-- Let's send middle-aged parents back to hell! They've been here since Hurricane Mitch, and their son is a US citizen, but they've got to go! (see the article link below for the details on this impending action against the parents of a 27 year-old man and his parents)
These two excerpts from the article say it all. The article also contains a detailed description of the causes of the current violence in Honduras.
"Though previous administrations kept on extending beneficiaries' TPS status, the Trump administration has taken a different stance."
Yes, very different. Different from any administration of either party as far back as we can remember.
"In November, DHS ended TPS (Temporary Protected Status) for 60,000 Haitians who arrived after the 2010 earthquake, giving them an 18-month period to leave. In November, the administration announced they would not extend TPS for Nicaraguans, saying the country was recovered from Hurricane Mitch and gave them 14 months to leave the U.S."
It's obvious from the article that things are so bad in Honduras that these people are actually refugees. But then, the Trump Administration has demonized refugees, so it wouldn't matter what we called them, anyway.
Amid political unrest, violence in Honduras, TPS holders in U.S. worry about their fate
These actions just seem pointless.
Third up-- cuffing up the good ones and hauling them in.
No further explanation needed.
Deportation officers are increasingly arresting people with no criminal records
In depth, with the numbers. From New York Times Magazine Daily Intelligencer:
Arrests of Undocumented Immigrants Without Criminal Records Skyrockets in 2017
The scariest part of the above article was an ICE Union official declaring how morale is really great among the agents now!
They care nothing about why an undocumented person is here. They care nothing about the collateral emotional damage caused by their new Trump-inspired policies.
Just swing the cudgel and kick 'em out!
Our last example is the most heart-wrenching, and caused a somewhat larger blip in the Anglo media, simply because of the "how could you?" factor.
Well, they could, and they did, and we suppose, morale was through the roof back at the station that day.
Rosamaria Hernandez is a 10 year old undocumented girl with cerebral palsy . . .
. . .we'll let Esther Yu Hsi Lee of Think Progress continue (link to her article below the quote):
"On Tuesday, Rosa Maria Hernandez, a 10-year-old undocumented child living in Laredo, was taken by ambulance to receive emergency gallbladder surgery in Corpus Christi. At an interior checkpoint along the way, border agents flagged the young girl for living in the country illegally and followed the ambulance nearly 150 miles to Driscoll Children’s Hospital."
Of all the articles about Rosamaria (and there are many), this article is our favorite because it contains an interview with her mother:
Mother of detained 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy speaks out: 'This is like torture'
In the end, Rosamaria was released to her parents.
Because the ACLU got involved, apparently not quibbling over who was American or not.
Because the ACLU got involved, apparently not quibbling over who was American or not.
That's what they do. When the spotlight is turned on, they panic and skitter, and equivocate, almost as if they knew what they're doing is shameful, and not a matter of exultation.
We have to believe there are people involved in these increasingly common DHS/ICE operations who will be so bothered by what they're doing they'll speak up, but the culture of fear is contagious. We're pretty sure they're afraid of repercussions, too.
We have to believe there are people involved in these increasingly common DHS/ICE operations who will be so bothered by what they're doing they'll speak up, but the culture of fear is contagious. We're pretty sure they're afraid of repercussions, too.
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