When he campaigned for election, Donald Trump did his best to paint a dark image of a country suffering an invasion at the hands of millions of foreign criminals and terrorists. He did what he does best - he pandered to our darker natures. It is one thing to say that an immigrant with a serious criminal record should be deported. Most of us would agree. But Trump went further, dehumanizing our immigrants, even those here legally, as pet-eating "animals". Now that he's President, Trump has gone after our immigrant population with the same gusto that Hitler displayed in going after Jews. Hitler used brown-shirted SA (Sturmabteilung) thugs while Trump has designated mask-wearing ICE agents. As of last week, ICE had 66,000 people in detention camps, the most it has ever held in a single week. But how many of these detainees are actually pet-eating cartel members? According to CATO, which is no left-leaning think tank, about 7% of detainees are violent criminals. 65% had no convictions. Over 90% had no serious criminal convictions. In fact, as of October 16, ProPublica reports that at least 170 US citizens have been detained.
While a majority of American voters certainly supported a crackdown on illegal immigration and the deportation of illegal violent criminals, I doubt they expected the tactics being used by ICE to target just about anyone who looks a little different. And now it has happened in my own family.
A member of my family is currently dabbling in real estate. He buys small properties in Philly and then rehabs them and wither rents them out or sells them. He found a fellow named Eduardo to do most of the remodeling work for him. Eduardo spends a lot of his time going to local Home Depots and other hardware stores to get the materials he needs. Apparently, ICE is focusing on Home Depots and construction sites to conduct its sweeps because Eduardo was stopped after visiting one last week.
He is a lawful permanent resident with no criminal record. He is just a hard worker. He was asked to produce his papers, which he does not carry on his person. He explained he could get them, but ICE just detained him.
That was on Monday of last week.
In the meantime, the real estate tycoon in my family had texted Eduardo about the cabinets and flooring on one of his projects.
Fortunately, ICE did allow Eduardo to contact his wife. She got him a lawyer, and he was released from detention on Friday.
He returned to work that day.
Now I know many of you voted for Trump. But I doubt you expected this overkill which, like it or not, is eerily similar to the tactics used by Hitler.
I am not calling him Hitler, but I am making very clear that we are on a dangerous path. I suspect this ICE over-reach, which goes far beyond what we expect of our country, played a part in last week's Democratic victory. It's not that Democrats are being embraced so much as a rejection of Trump's excesses.
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