Even now, six months into President Trump’s second term, there’s a tendency to disregard President Trump’s sometimes fiery rhetoric as mere big talk. Americans ought to know better by now. Iranians certainly do, after Trump sent bunker bombs into their most secure nuclear facility.
Similarly, when he ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents into Southern California and told them to “do all in their power to…deliver the single largest mass deportation program in history,” he wasn’t kidding. His order led to weeks of protests in affected areas, demonstrations that made no discernible dent in the president’s plans.
This suggests that when Trump employs white supremacist memes in speeches and social media posts, he also means it.
He did that just after the “No Kings” movement produced the largest one-day set of anti-government demonstrations in U.S. history.
In a little-noticed rant on his Truth Social service the next morning, Trump announced that, “Our government will continue to be focused on the REMIGRATION of Aliens to the places from where they came, and preventing the admission of ANYONE who undermines the domestic tranquility of the United States.”
Never mind that one would have to be a mind reader to tell in advance which prospective immigrants threaten domestic tranquility.
It was Trump’s use of the term “remigration” that should have raised eyebrows, but drew little notice. Historically, the word has meant the voluntary return of migrants to their countries of origin. But, as reported by the British newspaper The Guardian, in modern usage, especially among white supremacists in America and Europe, it’s a euphemism for indiscriminating mass deportation and ethnic cleansing. The term is often used to target non-white immigrants, regardless of their origin.
In countries from Albania to Serbia and Tajikistan, that word also has been used in efforts to create all-white enclaves, with some such efforts backed by governments.
So it was no surprise when ICE agents without a warrant entered the Montebello auto body shop of Brian Gavidia, twisting his arm and demanding he tell them in which hospital he was born, in order to prove his citizenship. Incidents like this, first reported in local newspapers, have been common in the Southern California sweeps.
In the end, Gavidia used his Real ID drivers license to prove citizenship, after being unable to recall the name of the hospital.
The incident was not unusual. Gavidia told a reporter, “Latinos in general are getting attacked. We are all getting attacked.”
Documented or not, immigrants all over California now experience terror over the possibility of being picked up and deported with no due process, as has been reported in hundreds of cases so far. Construction workers stayed home in droves, roofing and drywall jobs halted, nannies refused to take their young charges to parks and some normally busy neighborhoods became sudden ghost towns.
The racial profiling in the ICE raids has been beyond doubt, striking fear in millions of the brown-skinned and netting some U.S. citizens. There’s also no doubt about agents attempting to hide their identity. In an era when almost all local and state police carry body cameras to ensure their behavior is correct, not only do ICE agents carry no cameras, they often wear ski masks to hide their identity. If their actions are correct, why do that?
It’s in keeping with Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem’s remark to a news conference that ICE raids on everything from convenience stores to family homes will continue indefinitely. Said Noem, “We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialist and burdensome government that this governor and this mayor have placed on this country and this city.”Just two days after Noem made that admission of the purely political nature of the ICE presence in California, Trump ordered raids to intensify in Chicago, New York and other Democratic-run cities.
Republican states need not worry much – yet – even though Texas called up more than 5,000 national guard troops to ready for responses to possible upcoming raids there.
For the other cities and states Trump vocally targeted, none of which voted for him last year, the message is clear: Heed what Trump says. He means every message, even if he backs off or softens some.
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com.
