Trump and Pence Continue to Push Ahead With the Fascist Juggernaut

On March 20, Trump issued an “emergency order” to close the U.S.-Mexico border to “non-essential travel”—which includes refugees and other immigrants.¹ Since then, at least 8,800 immigrant children who arrived unaccompanied by an adult have been thrown out of the country without court hearings. At least 7,600 family members, and a total of about 159,000 people, have also been expelled.^2,3 This information wasn’t known to the public until just recently, when it came out in a court declaration on September 11 by U.S. Border Patrol Deputy Chief Raul Ortiz.⁴

Guatemalans boarding bus — being returned to their country — report 100 cases of active COVID-19. (AP photo)

Trump’s order effectively shredded the rights of people seeking asylum, without any possibility of redress. The day it came out, Chad Wolf, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, snarled, “Tonight, at midnight, we will execute the ... order by immediately returning individuals arriving without documentation ... without delay.”⁵ Trump claimed his order would help stem the spread of the coronavirus. In reality, the massive deportations have contributed to the spread of the virus in Mexico, Central America, and other countries. A report from the Marshall Project indicated that between the end of March and mid-July, 11 countries had confirmed that people deported from the U.S. had “returned home with Covid-19.”⁶

Since at least August, the fascist regime has used hired Gestapo⁷ (otherwise known as “private security agencies”) to oversee detained children outside the formal detention system. Hundreds of unaccompanied children arrested at the border—some as young as one year old⁸—have been quickly shipped off to hotels, where they are briefly confined and then sent on deportation flights. This enables the regime and its enforcers to avoid sending the children to shelters operated by the Department of Health and Human Services, where they are supposed to receive some education, legal services, and an opportunity to be placed with relatives living in the U.S. This week’s hearing was held because the regime has defied a court order that it stop sending unsupervised children to hotels.

A Life-Crushing System

In Central America, as in many other parts of the world, entire agricultural landscapes have been ravaged by the importation of American produce imposed by unequal trade agreements, the ruination of farmland caused by rising temperatures, depleted water supplies, and crop diseases, all worsened by intensifying climate change caused by the working of the capitalist-imperialist system. Then the U.S.—sitting at the top of this system—persecutes people for trying to escape the living hell it has created.

Most of these immigrants are fleeing infernos of violence and crushing poverty. They are among the survivors of a treacherous journey of over 2,000 miles, across mountains, over deserts, riding on top of trains... risking everything to flee the rape, persecution, hunger, and threat of death that hounded them in their homelands.

Then all of them—children included—are greeted by a militarized border bristling with razor-wire fences, high-tech weaponry, and heavily armed goon squads of Border Patrol, as well as local police forces and vigilantes. And now many of the children who survived and managed to reach the U.S. are taken away, locked up in a hotel room with no ability to communicate with anyone outside of it, and soon put on a plane that takes them away. What happens to them then? As the Texas Tribune reported,⁹ “Some are sent to overcrowded government shelters in Central American countries like Guatemala; others are totally out of reach of legal service providers, who have not been able to find them.”

Indefinite Extension... or End to This Fascist Regime?

In May, the fascist regime announced an “indefinite extension” of Trump’s emergency order.¹⁰ Can you tolerate this “indefinite extension” of the sadistic abuse of immigrant children? This regime’s heartless attacks on children and others seeking asylum, and their announcement that they intend to extend it into the foreseeable future, cannot be allowed to stand.

1. Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing, March 20, 2020.  [back]

2. 8,800 migrant kids were kicked out of the US under coronavirus border restrictions, CNN, September 11, 2020.  [back]

3. Nearly 9,000 migrant children have been expelled under pandemic border policy, court documents say CBS News, September 11, 2020.  [back]

4. 8,800 unaccompanied children deported under Trump administration’s Covid rules, The Independent, September 12, 2020.  [back]

5. Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing, March 20, 2020.  [back]

6. How ICE Exported the Coronavirus, The Marshall Project, July 10, 2020.  [back]

7. A Private Security Company Is Detaining Migrant Children at Hotels, New York Times, August 16, 2020.  [back]

8. Ibid.  [back]

9. ICE is making sure kids don’t have COVID-19, then expelling them to “prevent the spread” of COVID-19; Texas Tribune, August 10, 2020.  [back]

10. Trump administration indefinitely extends US border restrictions, citing coronavirus, ABC News, May 19, 2020.  [back]

In 2018, the Florida state constitution was amended to restore voting rights for people convicted of felonies.¹¹ The Republican-controlled state legislature and the pro-Trump governor, Ron DeSantis, then adopted a new restriction—requiring that people convicted of felonies pay all the fines and court fees they owed before their right to vote was restored, regardless of their ability to pay. In May 2020, a federal judge ruled that the requirement that ex-felons pay the fines they owed—which could be unaffordable for many—in order to vote amounted to a “pay to vote,” which is an unconstitutional poll tax. But now, on Friday, September 11, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta overturned this May decision.

This is a major move to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of people—especially people who are non-white, poor, and may very likely vote against Trump. According to an expert from the ACLU, more than 774,000 people convicted of felonies in Florida owe court fines, fees, and other such financial debt. These fees and fines vary widely but range from hundreds to thousands of dollars—which people leaving prisons and out of a job could find impossible to pay. And in Florida, court fees that are unpaid after 90 days are referred to private debt collectors, who can demand up to a 40 percent surcharge. And if the people who were convicted of felonies are unable to “pay up,” they will be deprived of their right to vote. The appeals court said states aren’t required to provide a process for people convicted of felonies to even know whether they are eligible to vote. And Florida has no centralized way to let them know how much they owe in fines and fees.

Five of the six judges behind the appellate court decision on voting by ex-felons in Florida were appointed by Trump. Two of them were former Florida Supreme Court justices put on the appeals court by Governor DeSantis.

A released ex-felon consults with ACLU in order to fill out papers to register to vote. (AP photo)

This move in Florida is right in line with other efforts around the country by the fascist Trump/Pence regime to disenfranchise those who probably won’t vote for Trump and lay the ground to declare the elections “illegitimate” if Trump doesn’t win.

This same week, a federal appeals court ruled that Texas could continue to restrict mail-in voting for people under 65. And the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled to pause absentee ballots until it decides if the Green Party presidential candidate should be on the ballot.

Only two states (Maine and Vermont) allow people convicted of felonies to vote even while they are serving their terms; 18 other states strip voting rights from people convicted of felonies while they’re in prison but restore them once they get out.¹²

11. Except those convicted of murder and sexual offenses.  [back]

12. Where People Convicted of Felonies Can Vote in the U.S., ThoughtCo.com, September 12, 2020.  [back]

On September 10, Trump was asked by Jeanine Pirro of fascist Fox “News” what his response would be on election night if he won and those against him “threaten riots.” Trump’s response: “We’ll put them down very quickly if they do that.... We have the right to do that, we have the power to do that if we want. Look, it’s called insurrection. We just send them in and we do it, very easy. I mean, it’s very easy. I’d rather not do that because there’s no reason for it, but if we had to we’d do that and put it down within minutes. Minneapolis, they were having problems. We sent in the National Guard within a half an hour. That was the end of the problem. It all went away.”

In a Fox “News” call-in with Jeanine Pirro, Trump described anticipated post-election protests as “INSURRECTION.”

That’s a description that would theoretically enable him to use US military force against Americans on US soil.

Pay attention.

🚨🚨🚨https://t.co/6LsrmODEXJ

— Leah McElrath 🏳️‍🌈 (@leahmcelrath) September 11, 2020

Let’s be clear here: Trump is threatening a violent repressive crackdown by the armed forces of the government on protests against him. This goes along with the very real prospect of violence by “unofficial” fascist ground forces—acting on Trump’s behalf and whipped up by him, carried out by armed Nazi-type militias, “Proud Boys,” “Bikers for Trump,” QAnon conspiracy theorists, and other fascist thugs, should he lose the election (if an election actually takes place).

National Guard soldiers line the street as demonstrators gather to protest the death of George Floyd, Wednesday, June 3, 2020, near the White House in Washington. (AP photo)

Last June 1, under order from Attorney General William Barr, federal forces unleashed brutality against peaceful protesters at Lafayette Park across from the White House so that Trump could walk to a nearby church and pose for a photo-op with a Bible for his Christian fascist followers. And in Portland, federal pigs sent in by the Trump/Pence regime carried out a vicious crackdown on protesters, including kidnapping people off the streets in unmarked vans. These are just small previews of what the fascist in the White House is threatening to do across the country on election night.

Another glimpse at what the fascists may be thinking of and even planning for came from the mouth of longtime Republican operative and Trump stooge, Roger Stone. (In July, Trump commuted the 40-month prison sentence of Stone, who had been convicted of lying to Congress.) In a call with Alex Jones—pro-Trump conspiracy theorist—on his online Infowars show, Stone said Trump should consider declaring “martial law” or invoke the Insurrection Act if he should lose the November election. Stone hurled uncorroborated accusations of “voter fraud” in Florida and Nevada, and said that in Nevada, where the Democrats are reportedly gaining, votes should not even be counted because “they are already flooded with illegals.” And he threatened journalists, in particular citing the website Daily Beast: “If the Daily Beast is involved in provably seditious and illegal activities, their entire staff can be taken into custody and their office can be shut down. They want to play war, this is war.”

In a September 6 tweet, Trump threatened schools that use the New York Times’ “1619 Project” in their curriculum. The 1619 series, which the Times began last year, sheds light on important facts about this country and its roots in slavery. In the tweet, citing another tweet by someone else that claimed California had “implemented the 1619 project into public schools,” Trump declared: “Department of Education is looking at this. If so, they will not be funded!”

This is not the first time fascists have issued threats against the use of the 1619 Project in schools. Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas and enthusiastic Trump supporter, has introduced legislation he named “Saving American History Act” that “would prohibit the use of federal funds to teach the 1619 Project by K-12 schools or school districts” and also make them “ineligible for federal professional-development grants.”

As CNN reported, it is unclear how many schools have actually adopted the 1619 Project into their lessons. But the message from fascist-in-chief Trump is not so much about any particular teaching material. Trump’s threat is part of the whole campaign by the regime, spearheaded by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, to attack public, secular education—with the ultimate goal of replacing public schools with schools that indoctrinate students in a belief that America has been, and should always be, a white, fundamentalist Christian country.