The rulers of America’s capitalist-imperialist system, Democrat and Republican alike, have gorged for decades on relentless exploitation and persecution of immigrants—in particular immigrants from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The ruling class has been as one in using punishment and death to wrench profit from generation after generation of immigrants.
Millions of people have worked shit jobs, paid at or below minimum wage, to be rewarded with deportation. Countless families have been torn apart. Kids have gone to school in the morning only to get home in the afternoon and learn that their mother, or father, or both, had been taken away and sent out of the country. Thousands of people have died agonizing deaths trying to cross deserts, mountains, and rivers.
But now the Trump/Pence regime is taking all this to entirely new depths. Trump began his presidential campaign by calling Mexican immigrants “rapists.” His frenzied mobs regularly chant “build that wall” during his fascist rallies. Trump has threatened to put moats with “snakes and alligators” on the U.S. side of the wall. His regime has been marked by the cruelty of parent-child separations; the declaration that people from what this white supremacist calls “shithole countries” must be prevented from entering the U.S.; frigid concentration camps for children; a “Muslim Ban” on entry to the U.S., among many other measures.
And for every one of this regime’s outrageous statements and murderous deeds, there are literally dozens of executive decisions, judicial rulings, policy changes, and other less known measures intended to cement a virulently racist, immigrant-hating foundation in place. The scope and fiendishness of Trump’s racist, hate-filled language and the anti-immigrant measures his regime has taken are laying groundwork for truly genocidal measures aimed at committing massive violence against millions.
These fascists are putting together what one immigration lawyer described as “a combination of interlocking mechanisms” that have transformed immigration policy in this country into something even more ferocious than what preceded it, as a central component of their attempts to consolidate all-out fascism. What follows are some of the chief features of these measures.
The U.S.’s Southern Border, a 2,000 Mile Zone of Death and Repression
Table of Contents
II. Concentration Camps, Deaths
III. Driving Immigrants Out of the Country
IV. Moves to Eliminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Hundreds of Thousands
V. Targeting 800,000 People Under DACA for Deportation
VI. Migrant Persecution Protocols
VII. The Muslim Ban and Beyond: Reshaping Visa and Asylum to Serve Fascist Ends
A Clip: “The Demonization, Criminalization and Deportations of Immigrants”
I. The Wall and the Border
Building a wall along the entire southwest border has been central to Trump’s fascist program since he began campaigning in 2016. Rabid mobs of his supporters routinely chant “build that wall” at his rallies. His regime has allocated billions of dollars to the border wall, to repair existing sections and build new ones. The border bristles with razor wire and barbed wire. It is patrolled by tens of thousands of enforcers—Border Patrol, customs officers, state and local police. Enormous radar blimps hover 15,000 feet above the border, along with surveillance aircraft, including drones. Infrared cameras are posted along the border; underground sensors beneath it. The Texas Highway Patrol has heavily armored gunboats equipped with 50-caliber machine guns prowling the Rio Grande.1
Border Patrol Agents
There were about 19,400 Border Patrol agents nationally in 2018, about 16,600 of them along the U.S. border with Mexico. When Trump first took office, he signed an executive order for hiring 5,000 more Border Patrol, and developed plans to hire 2,700 each year.
National Guard Deployed to Border
In April 2018, Trump ordered the Department of Defense to send 4,000 National Guard troops to the border, and extended the order in November. Despite the withdrawal of troops from some states, as of March 21, 2019, about 2,100 remained.2 In late June 2019, Texas governor Greg Abbot, a Trump ally, announced he is sending an additional 1,000 Texas National Guard to the border.3
Active Duty Military
In October 2018, the Defense Department deployed 5,200 active-duty personnel to the border. While some were withdrawn in December, orders for thousands of others were extended into 2019. In February 2019 another 3,750 troops were sent to the border, and in April, an additional 320.4
The U.S.military place razor wire along the U.S.-Mexico border near the McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge in McAllen, Texas, November 2018. Photo: AP
White Supremacist Vigilantes
On April 16, 2019, a video surfaced showing a group of armed men in military-style uniforms who announced themselves as the police surrounding immigrants. They pointed their rifles at the immigrants, and commanded them to sit. The men, from a white supremacist vigilante group called the “United Constitutional Patriots” held the immigrants until the Border Patrol arrived and arrested the immigrants—but the Border Patrol neither ordered the vigilantes to disperse nor took their weapons from them. One of the vigilante leaders said “We are simply there because President Trump declared a national emergency on the border ... we are here right now and we’re doing what we need to do.”5 (One vigilante leader was later arrested for “impersonating a federal agent” after widespread outrage at the videos he posted online.)
Arrests and Deportations at the Border
In the fiscal year 2019 (October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019), 859,501 people were taken into federal custody along the southern border by Border Patrol agents and deported. This is more than twice the number arrested in 2018.6 An additional 263,000 people were denied entry at southern ports of entry.
From the Q&A: Bob Avakian's Answer to People Who Complain about Immigrants Crossing Borders
Criminalizing Immigration – “Zero Tolerance”
In April 2018, Trump’s Department of (In)Justice (DOJ) instructed federal prosecutors to prioritize prosecution of immigration crimes. In May, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it would refer all people arrested crossing the border to the DOJ for prosecution. (This instruction no longer applied to families with children after Trump signed an executive order in late June that supposedly ended family separations.)
Arresting Children, Tearing Families Apart
Over half of those apprehended by the Border Patrol in fiscal 2019—more than 450,000 people—were with a family. Many of these were children and infants. This is dramatically different from any other time in the Border Patrol’s history, and an increase of almost six times more than in 2015, which had previously been the year with the highest number of people arriving as families. After the May 2018 announcement (above) DHS began separating thousands of families, with the parents held for prosecution. After protests around the country against this barbaric practice, Trump signed another executive order on June 20 which supposedly ended the separation of families. Government officials admitted that 2,737 children had been taken from their parents in that period. But in January 2019 the Department of Health and Human Services said “thousands” more children may have been wrenched from their families.7 Furthermore, “for cause” separations of families determined by “law enforcement needs” are occurring in 2019 at twice the rate they did in late 2016.8
The Trump/Pence regime has undertaken several legal and administrative measures to “increase enforcement both against children and the family members with whom they seek to reunify.”9 These include instructions to judges to “root out fraud,” to ensure that the designation of minor can be removed from a child in custody, to mandate “extreme vetting” of potential sponsors for young immigrants. In April 2019, ICE announced it is sending investigators to determine if fraudulent documents are being used at the border to create “fake families.” Investigations from now on will also include DNA testing.10
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II. Concentration Camps, Deaths
Hundreds of Thousands, Including Children in Dozens of Concentration Camps
In 2018 ICE booked 396,448 people into its custody. In addition, another 12,000 children were held under supervision of the Office of Refugee resettlement.11 ICE has detention centers in every state in the country, with the highest concentration being in Texas, California, and Arizona.12 By December 2018, almost 15,000 children were in the custody of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.13
This photo was taken in May 2019 at a concentration camp near McAllen, TX and obtained by CNN from an unnamed person.
Deaths in U.S. Custody
Since Trump took office, 12 immigrants have died while in Border Patrol custody; 27 while in ICE custody.14 These include a two-year-old Guatemalan boy who died of pneumonia and seven-year-old Jakelin Caal Maquin, who went into cardiac arrest brought on by severe dehydration. As of September 20, at least 15 immigrant children died while in Border Patrol custody or immediately after being released this year.15
Death in the Deserts
In 2017, the last year for which there are official figures, 412 people died within the U.S. just over the border. Most of these people died from “prolonged exposure to the extreme environments in the border region.”16 According to the group Border Angels, about 10,000 people have died attempting to cross the border since 1994.17 The official U.S. Customs number of deaths between 1998 and 2017 is 7,126. These figures only reflect known deaths—how many hundreds or thousands have perished in the blistering heat is unknown. Border Patrol agents routinely destroy water bottles and other survival provisions left in the desert by people trying to help the desperate immigrants. The federal government tried twice—unsuccessfully—to convict on felony charges Scott Warren, a geography professor who set water bottles in the desert.
Screenshot from video posted by No More Deaths showing border agent grinning while pouring out water left for migrants. No More Deaths reported “Border Patrol agents are destroying gallons of water intended for border crossers.... In data collected by No More Deaths from 2012 to 2015, we find that at least 3,586 gallon jugs of water were destroyed” in one desert corridor.
Killed While in Border Patrol Custody or Fleeing Border Patrol
Clear figures of deaths of immigrants in U.S. custody at the border are not provided by the U.S. government. But we do know that as of November 6, at least 15 adults are known to have died while in Border Patrol custody or while trying to evade them in 2019.18 Most of these people died of “extreme dehydration” after they were taken into Border Patrol custody. How long they waited to receive medical attention is not clear. Others were killed in car and foot chases. This is a 50% increase over all of 2018.
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III. Driving Immigrants Out of the Country
ICE Raids and Deportations
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the main government agency responsible for deporting people arrested within the U.S. One of Trump’s first actions as president was to sign an executive order instructing ICE agents to enforce U.S. laws against “all removable aliens.”19 This greatly enlarged the number of people potentially targeted for deportation, since the previous policy had been to focus on “criminal aliens.”
August 7, 2019, U.S. Immigration raided several Mississippi food processing plants, including this Koch Foods Inc. plant in Morton, MS. The early morning raids were part of a large-scale operation targeting allegedly undocumented employees. Photo: ICE.
Expanding ICE, Increasing Raids
There were 6,848 “worksite investigations” by ICE in 2018, over 5,000 more than in 2017.20 Thousands of people have been arrested and deported in raids across the country.21 In July 2019, Trump announced that ICE is poised to escalate raids in about a dozen cities. In August, about 680 people, mainly workers in poultry plants, were arrested in ICE raids across northern Mississippi. In the fiscal year 2018, 287,741 people were deported from raids within the U.S. interior, the highest number in any year since an institute at Syracuse University began keeping records.22 Trump has directed the Department of Homeland Security to hire 10,000 additional ICE agents. At this point, Congress hasn’t provided all the funding for that, and it is still being contested.
ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) arrested about 680 people in several Mississippi towns in the August 7, 2019 raids. Magdalena Gomez Gregorio, 11 years old, pleads for the return of her father who was picked up in the raid.
Expanding and Upgrading “E-Verify”
In 2017, Trump ordered that E-Verify, an electronic system that enables employers to check the legal status of employees and potential employees, be expanded and upgraded. For now, it is “voluntary,” though it is mandatory by state law in 22 states,23 and all federal contractors and subcontractors must use it.
Attacking Sanctuary Cities, Expanding Local and State Police Enforcement of Immigration Law
In January 2017, Trump issued an executive order that no federal grants go to law enforcement in sanctuary jurisdictions. This has been overturned several times in courts, but the Trump/Pence regime continues to contest it. Meanwhile, it has developed other ways of cutting off funds to sanctuary cities, within the framework of existing immigration law.24
“Zero Tolerance”
The (In)Justice Department instructed its prosecutors to pursue all “illegal entry” cases as criminal charges. Previously the government policy, if not always its practice, had prioritized arresting immigrants wanted for or convicted of criminal offenses. In May 2018, it announced that the Department of Homeland Security would pursue “100%” of entry cases as “criminal.”25
Locking up Pregnant Women
In 2017, Trump ordered ICE to end a policy that enabled it to release pregnant women from federal imprisonment while awaiting court appearances.26
Limiting Legal Appearances, Accelerating Deportation
Upon taking office the Trump/Pence regime began implementing numerous changes to speed up immigration cases and get people into the deportation pipeline quicker, and it continues to do so.27 These include using video teleconferencing for court appearances, hiring more immigration judges, limiting continuances, sending judges to locations across the country where the caseload is highest, instituting metrics that demand “peak efficiency” (meaning, maximum deportations the quickest), ending the grossly misnamed “child-friendly practices,” “expediting dockets” in 10 large cities “with the expectation that (each case) would be adjudicated within 180 days,” and others. These measures have included bringing toddlers before immigration judges. Immigration courts are not obligated to provide attorneys or maintain even the pretense of “due process” supposedly available in criminal courts.
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IV. Moves to Eliminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Hundreds of Thousands
The Trump/Pence regime has been trying to eliminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which provides legal status to immigrants in the U.S. from a small number of designated countries who are deemed unable to safely return to their homelands because of natural disasters, famine, or armed conflicts. Currently, about 300,000 people are covered under TPS—the largest number from El Salvador, followed by Honduras and Haiti. First started in 1990, TPS gives temporary reprieve to people from deportation even though they lack legal status as permanent residents, and enables them to obtain work permits.
Burning Down the House—and Throwing the Victims Back in It
In January 2018, the Trump/Pence regime announced it is ending TPS for people from El Salvador—turning upside down the lives of not only about 200,000 Salvadorans with TPS but hundreds of thousands of family members. This was a couple of months after the cancellation of TPS for 50,000 Haitians. As a Salvadoran woman in Los Angeles who has two children born in the U.S. said, “We had hope that if we worked hard, paid our taxes and didn’t get in trouble we would be allowed to stay.” She said she would risk arrest rather than return to El Salvador, even though without the TPS she would lose the job she had for 12 years and medical insurance for herself and her family.
The Salvadorans covered under TPS had fled a country torn by a civil war in which the U.S. supported and trained death squads and a military that killed about 75,000 people in the small country, and displaced one-fifth of the population. Then in 2001, two massive earthquakes left much of the already devastated country in even worse ruins. The Trump/Pence regime’s twisted rationale for ending the TPS for Salvadorans was that the conditions that made it unsafe to return to El Salvador no longer existed. As revcom.us wrote, “This is like setting a house on fire, shooting down some of the people who manage to escape, and gathering up others to throw them back in the burning building. For decades, El Salvador has been tormented by U.S. domination. Millions of people live in a hell of hunger, poverty, and death that has ‘Made in the USA’ stamped all over it.”
New York, November 21, 2017, outside Representative Peter King's office on Long Island, demanding that Temporary Protected Status be saved, and the passage of a clean DREAM Act. Photo: Make the Road NY
New York, November 21, 2017, outside Representative Peter King's office on Long Island, demanding that Temporary Protected Status be saved, and the passage of a clean DREAM Act. Photo: Make the Road NY
TPS Cancellation Blocked for Now—but Threat Hangs Over the Head of Immigrants
In October 2018, a federal court judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump/Pence regime from ending TPS for people from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Sudan. The regime is appealing the ruling. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security said that TPS status for people from those countries would be extended through January 2020, and re-extended in nine-month intervals if needed. In a separate lawsuit, a group of TPS holders from Honduras and Nepal are challenging their status. But Trump/Pence officials have made it clear they are pressing forward with the attempt to get rid of TPS altogether, and that once that happens, people covered by TPS will have 120 days to leave the U.S.
El Salvador Government Makes Devil’s Bargain with Trump/Pence
In October of this year, the Trump/Pence regime separately extended the TPS for the people from El Salvador. But there were reports that this extension came at a price: the signing by the Salvadoran government of an agreement demanded by the Trump/Pence regime under which El Salvador would step up efforts against the flow of refugees from Central America to the U.S. Furthermore, according to the Los Angeles Times: “Trump administration officials painted a different picture, however, attempting to limit the scope of the extension. Acting head of Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli, in fact, said TPS was not being extended at all. ‘Rather, work permits for Salvadorans will be extended for 1 year past resolution of litigation for an orderly wind down period,’ he said on Twitter.”
Denying TPS to People from Bahamas after Deadly Hurricane
In September, the Caribbean island nation of the Bahamas was hit with a deadly hurricane that totally destroyed parts of the country and left dozens dead. The Trump/Pence regime refused to grant TPS to people from the Bahamas. And about 100 people fleeing the devastation were told to get off a ferry that was to take them from the Bahamas to Florida because the U.S. would not let them in. A Boston Globe editorial noted, “A massive hurricane striking an island nation is practically a textbook definition of the sort of humanitarian crises that Congress had in mind when it created the program. If Bahamians don’t qualify, then exactly who does?” And that was exactly the point the Trump/Pence regime was making with this deliberately inhumane move: we are NOT going to give TPS to anyone.
Adding to the Cruel Separation of Families
There are an estimated 273,000 children who were born in the U.S. to parents who are covered under TPS. If the Trump/Pence regime succeeds in its declared intention to end TPS, these families would face an agonizing situation. As an op-ed writer in the Washington Post noted: “Parents will be faced with the decision of whether to take their children—most of whom speak mainly English and know only life in this country—back to countries deemed by the State Department as not safe for travel, some with the highest homicide rates in the hemisphere. Otherwise, parents will have to leave their children alone in the United States or, if they’re lucky, with relatives, or foster parents who they may or may not know, or some with ‘adult sponsors’ chosen by federal agencies. The only other choice available to those parents would be to hide in the shadows as undocumented aliens.”
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V. Targeting 800,000 People Under DACA for Deportation
One of Donald Trump’s major campaign promises was to kill DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), the federal program that since 2012 has shaped the lives of 800,000 “Dreamers”—undocumented immigrants brought to this country as children, even as babies. For most Dreamers, the U.S. is the only home they have ever known. Under an executive order issued by Barack Obama, they were eligible for renewable two-year work permits to live and work in the U.S. legally. Elimination of DACA would mean these hundreds of thousands would be deported, separated from families and friends—or hunted down as “illegals” by ICE agents in the land they grew up in.
Regime Declares End of DACA
In September 2017, the Trump/Pence regime terminated the DACA program, throwing the lives of millions of people in this country into a whole new level of fear and danger. To qualify for DACA, people had to provide ICE with every detail of their lives: their residence, their work info, and the names and status of their family members and relatives. With the ending of DACA, it means this information could be used by the government to go after them and their loved ones. When they applied for DACA, they were told this information would not be used to deport them. But the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services later said that policy “may be modified, superseded, or rescinded at any time without notice.” Although DACA itself applies to a small percentage of immigrants in this country without documents, many of the DACA recipients live in households with both “legal” and “illegal” status—and the Trump/Pence regime’s targeting of DACA is a big part of the overall fascist assault against immigrants.
Court Cases Have Stopped Elimination of DACA for Now—but the Threat Sill Hangs Over the Heads of the Dreamers
Various court challenges have prevented the Trump/Pence regime—so far—from carrying out the complete elimination of DACA. The issue is now at the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments on the case on November 12, and is expected to come out with a ruling next June. In August, Justice Department lawyers submitted a brief to the Court claiming that Trump was fully within his rights in ending DACA. They said that the Department of Homeland Security had “correctly, and at a minimum reasonably, concluded that DACA is unlawful.” (Trump’s justification for eliminating DACA has been that Obama acted illegally in creating the program in the first place.)
Democrats Stab the Dreamers in the Back
At the end of 2017, the Senate Democrats forced a government shutdown by refusing to vote for a funding bill—supposedly in opposition to Trump’s moves to eliminate DACA. But very quickly, the Democratic leaders showed how hollow and duplicitous their show of “support” for the Dreamers was. First, top Senate Democrat Schumer, supposedly to facilitate a deal with Trump, agreed to link the fate of the Dreamers to support for Trump’s border wall. This was simply conceding that the wall and all the associated “security measures”—in other words, viciously anti-immigrant police and military actions—are valid, without getting anything in return. Then a few days later, in January 2018, Schumer and the other Democrats voted to approve the same bill to fund the government that they had just rejected. They gave away the one tool they had—forcing a federal government shutdown—by cravenly capitulating to the fascist regime and the Republicans.
In June of this year, the Democrats in the House passed a bill that called for granting DACA recipients conditional legal status for 10 years and allowing the possibility of obtaining permanent residency after completing some college, military service, or a period of work. But this was a meaningless gesture—the Republican-controlled Senate refused to take up the bill, and it has gone nowhere.
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VI. Migrant Persecution Protocols
In December 2018, the U.S. initiated a program called “Remain in Mexico,” also officially called the “Migrant Protection Protocols,” or MPP. It began in southern California, and by mid-summer 2019 had extended to border areas in Texas and Arizona. Under MPP the government quickly sends almost all asylum-seeking people who somehow make it into the U.S. back to Mexico, and allows them into the U.S. only for court hearings at a distant future date. In violation of long-standing international and U.S. law, the U.S. now refuses to accept asylum applications from people from Honduras and El Salvador who passed through Mexico and/or Guatemala without first applying for asylum there. Asylum seekers from Guatemala, as well as other parts of the world trying to get to the U.S.’s southern border, now must apply in Mexico before the U.S. will even give them a hearing. A federal appeals court allowed this rule to go into effect, and the Supreme Court had upheld that decision. This blatantly inhumane and illegal measure was upheld in September by the U.S. Supreme Court.28
Thousands Stranded in Mexico by U.S.’s Action
MPP has left tens of thousands of people stranded, penniless, and homeless in Mexican border cities. There they are caught in a deadly, suffocating vise: unable to enter the U.S.; terrified for their lives about returning to their homelands; preyed upon by criminal gangs and police, in some of the most violent cities in the world.29
Tijuana, November 25, 2018, on the U.S.-Mexico border. People who had walked thousands of miles to apply for asylum were confronted by riot police, helicopters, machine guns, and soldiers. Border Patrol threw tear gas at these migrants, including small children and babies. Photo: AP.
“Metering”
The Trump/Pence Department of (In)Justice instituted a policy called “metering” to limit the number of cases it hears each day. People who apply for asylum when they encounter a U.S. official at the border are given a teleconference court date, usually months in the future, and sent back to Mexico. A woman from Guatemala described her encounter: “They only asked for a name, a fingerprint, and then, ‘out.’”
First the Judgement, then the Hearing
The outcome of most hearings has been pre-determined for those who manage to make it that far. Kevin McAleenan, then commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, announced this summer that a “majority of these claims will not be successful.”30
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VII. The Muslim Ban and Beyond: Reshaping Visa and Asylum to Serve Fascist Ends
The Muslim Ban
In January 2017, Trump signed an executive order putting in place his regime’s infamous “Muslim ban.” It prohibited travel to the U.S. by people with legitimate visas from a number of predominantly Islamic countries. Protests erupted across the country. Multiple legal challenges were made against the ban. But the third rewriting of the ban was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 16, 2018.31 Visas from people in affected countries have dropped by as much as 92% since it went into effect.32
Harshly Restrictive New Measures for Refugee Admission
In March 2017, the Trump regime announced that it was suspending travel of all refugees into the U.S. for 120 days, while it reviewed existing applications and admission policy. It claimed it needed enhanced “security measures.”33 When admissions resumed, all applicants were subjected to “enhanced vetting,” and additional scrutiny if they were from countries determined to be “high risk.” The “Central American Minors Refugee and Parole Program,” which provided some protection to youths from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, was terminated.34 These measures quickly took a severe toll. In fiscal year 2016, 84,989 refugees were admitted into the U.S. In fiscal 2018, 22,491.35 That number is plummeting still lower this year.
Shutting Down Asylum, Redefining Fear
In June 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions narrowed the availability of asylum for those targeted by “non-state” actors. This stripped protection for victims of gang violence and domestic violence, and erected new barriers to asylum for women, children, LGBTQ victims, and others trying to escape abuse, beatings, rape, and murder.
Holding Asylum Applicants in Detention
In April 2019, Attorney General William Barr ruled that immigration judges are not allowed to hold bond hearings for asylum applicants. This aims to hold asylum seekers in detention (prison) indefinitely while their applications are pending.36 This has been blocked—for now—by a federal court.
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Conclusion
This list is not just a concentration of horrors directed at immigrants. It is more than an extension of the atrocities this system has always inflicted on immigrants. It represents a coherent, multi-dimensional fascist strategy to drive millions of people out of this country, to keep others from ever arriving, and to impose a reign of terror on all. From the moment Trump and Pence came into office their regime has been carrying out monstrous crimes against immigrants. They have also been creating the mechanisms, the infrastructure, the legal pretexts, and the rabid racist atmosphere to carry out crimes on a far greater, potentially genocidal scale, as a cornerstone of installing full on fascism.
They are deep into developing this program. It can be defeated—but the hour has gotten very late. Millions of people in this country have expressed disgust for and opposition to the vilification and slander of immigrants by the fascists in power. People have taken to the streets, sometimes in massive numbers, to oppose many of the attacks, but much more is needed, urgently. A mass, nonviolent movement needs to get in the streets and stay in the streets, and actually defeat this regime; people who despise the fascist regime and everything it does need to drive it from power, in the name of and in the interest of humanity. And this can and must contribute greatly to what is urgently needed—preparing for a revolution that overthrows the system itself and goes on to transform all of society in the interests of humanity, and the planet.
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Footnotes:
1. Fortifying the Border, by Silvia Foster-Frau, San Antonio Express News [back]
2. Trump Ordered 15,000 New Border Patrol and Immigration Officers, by Molly O’Toole, Los Angeles Times [back]
3. Texas Sending Another 1,000 National Guard Troops to Border, by Clarice Silber, Associated Press [back]
4. Immigration-Related Policy Changes in the First Two Years of the Trump Administration, by Sarah Pierce, Migration Policy Institute [back]
5. How Armed Vigilante Groups are Detaining Migrants on U.S.-Mexico Border, The Independent [back]
6. CBP Enforcement Statistics FY 2019, U.S. Customs and Border Protection [back]
7. Separated Children Placed in Office of Refugee Resettlement Care, HHS Office of Inspector General [back]
8. Congressional Testimony by Kathryn A. Larin, U.S. GAO [back]
9. Immigration-Related Policy Changes in the Trump Administration, Migration Policy Institute [back]
10. DHS to Start DNA Testing to Establish Family Relations at the Border, Priscilla Alvarez and Geneva Sands, CNN [back]
11. Fiscal year 2018, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Report [back]
12. Ice Detention Centers in Every U.S. State, Business Insider [back]
13. Office of Refugee Resettlement [back]
14. The Demise of America’s Asylum System Under Trump, by Nicole Narea, Vox.com [back]
15. More Immigrant Children Are Dying at the Border, by Adolfo Flores, Buzzfeed News [back]
16. Migrant Deaths Along U.S.-Mexico Border Remain High, UN News [back]
17. Border Angels website [back]
18. Deaths by Border Patrol Since 2010, Southern Border Communities Coalition [back]
19. “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” Executive Order from DHS [back]
20. Ice Worksite Investigations FY18 Surge, ICE press release [back]
21. Announcements of ICE Enforcement Actions, American Immigration Law Association [back]
22. Immigration Deportation Hearings Hit Record High in 2018, CBS News [back]
23. List of States That Require E-Verify, Efficient Hire [back]
24. DOJ Announces Priority Consideration Criteria for COPS Office Grants, press release from Department of Justice [back]
25. Attorney General Announces Zero-Tolerance Policy for Criminal Illegal Entry, press release from Department of Justice [back]
26. Directive: Identification and Monitoring of Pregnant Detainees, ICE [back]
27. Backgrounder on Strategic Caseload Reduction, from Executive Office for Immigration Review [back]
28. Supreme Court Lets Trump’s Rule for Asylum Seekers on Southern Border Stand, by Julián Aguilar, Texas Tribune [back]
29. Asylum Seekers Stranded in Mexico Face Homelessness, Kidnapping, and Sexual Violence, by Ashoka Mukpo, A.C.L.U. report [back]
30. Asylum Claims Jump Despite Trump’s Attempt to Limit Immigration, by Ron Nixon, New York Times [back]
31. The Travel Ban at Two: Rocky Implementation Settles Into Deeper Impacts, by Muzaffar Chishti and Jessica Bolter, Migration Policy Institute [back]
32. Statistics Show that Trump’s “Travel Ban” Was Always a Muslim Ban, Vahid Niayesh, Vox [back]
33. Executive Order 13815: Resuming the United States Refugee Admissions Program With Enhanced Vetting Capabilities, Homeland Security Digital Library [back]
34. Ibid [back]
35. Migration Policy Institute Study [back]
36. Matter of M-S-, Respondent, U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Attorney General [back]
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