Just over 100 days into the Trump administration and some of my worst fears about their ambitions have been realized. Admittedly, I like many others, wanted to believe this was me being paranoid. Sure, Trump said “in four years you won’t have to vote again.”1 and ample promises to deport people at mass scales. Despite how callous and heartless that seemed to me, people voted Donald Trump to his second presidential term.
Since then, we have seen the physical manifestation of these promises and many others he made on the campaign trail. While the damage Trump is doing to our government could take decades to recover from, I want to focus on the deportations he is conducting. I want to use that as a measuring stick for where we were and where we are headed.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) exists as a police force with little oversight. Its goal is to detain and deport illegal immigrants at the direction of the Executive Branch (the president). ICE was created in 2003 so it is relatively new to our government structure. In ICE’s history, they have continually done several things:
- Wrongful Detentions of Citizens
- Separation of migrant children and families
- Sexual Abuse Allegations
I do want to keep this somewhat brief but even a cursory glance at the ICE Wikipedia page2 can showcase exactly how brazen and awful this police force is. They do not care who they get. They do not care harm they cause when they send people away. They do not care to amend any of that harm and reunite people. They do not care to stop abusing people they detain. ICE exists as the most callous and despicable branch of our government, while also spitting in the eye of the American Dream.
As Trump promised, he has made huge swings with ICE to deport more people. Trump made a big show of deporting people to El Salvador via plane, despite legal citizens being on that plane.3 Trump has jailed people who are outspoken about Palestinian rights abuses and revoked student visas as a result.4 You may be thinking what all of my other astute neo-liberal friends have been thinking:
This is unconstitutional! This is illegal!
You’d be right! In the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Trump was ordered by the Supreme Court (9-0 by the way) to bring Garcia home. However, Trump made a meal of that and invited the self-proclaimed “World’s Coolest Dictator” (President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele) to the White House. They gave a joint press conference where they both openly mocked the idea of listening to the Supreme Court, and we heard Trump say things like,
In the Supreme Court’s ruling for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Justice Sotomayor had this to say:
In the days since, Trump has spread propaganda about Garcia. Claiming he has MS-13 tattoos on his hands, despite gang experts disagreeing with Trump.7 Trump has declared that we are fighting “Tren de Aragua” from Venzeula and that is why we need to be deporting people so aggressively under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.8 Keep in mind, this Act was the same immigration act used to detain Japanese Americans and put them in internment camps during WWII.
Here’s where I want to stop my information dump because either one of two things are true: you think this is good or you already know most of this. Allow me, for the former, to explain why you are wrong. This is one of the most devastating blows to American freedoms that has happened in the history of this country. It is not hyperbole to say that. People are being grabbed off of the street by unmarked officials and sent thousands of miles away. Sometimes, to countries they are not affiliated with. The White House has stated it likes using El Salvador’s CECOT prison because of how much harsher it is that American prisons. It is pure cruelty on the basis of race and perceived immigration status.
This is the beginning of a fascistic ethnic cleansing.
These are the last days of American democracy and freedom.
Again, I refuse to accept this as hyperbole. Trump has repeatedly and openly disregarded the highest Court in the United States. Trump is instilling fear in the legal system by pursuing criminal cases against Judges who stand against him.9 Trump has a bunch of lackeys in the Senate and the House that would blindly support anything he does. They have no shame in what they want to accomplish. They have no fear of being called a white supremacist or fascist. It is who they are. They seek to create the Christo-fascist state that Trump promised. Why else would you try to gut the education system and replace it with Christian Charter schools? Why else would you not care about who you deport? Just as long as they are not white right?
I know much more rational people would call for much more rational things, but I am a fearful person. I wonder how many days we have between today and when it won’t be okay for me to write something like this. So sure, call your local rep, but mine is Marsha fucking Blackburn so she is going to laugh in my face. Maybe I could vote in the midterms? That is if we have them at all at this point. Even if we did have them, Tennessee is not going to receive the support it needs from Democrats to flip the state.
To a large degree, being an American citizen is much like being an Ostrich. As long as my head is in the sand, I do not have to worry about everything else. I can watch Jim Kramer and au pine about the economy while my neighbor gets dragged out of her house with her kids. All of the people who wear punisher merch or have “don’t tread on me” stickers are so happy to defend their lawn, but could not be bothered to help thy neighbor. While I knew this already, I find it particularly appalling to see in practice. Some level of personal delusion had me believe that somewhere along the lines it would click. Something in their brain would say, “well that doesn’t seem right to me” or even a simple “I don’t like that” would suffice. Yet when polling conservatives:10
We see that there is a slight decline but still an overall major cosign of his decision making and “leadership” of the government. They like what is happening. His overall approval as of today (5/6/2025) is 46% among all voters according to the same article. Again, too high for a fascist. We see this approval trending downwards, but it could not be faster.
It is times like this where I feel like I am insane. I feel like I look around, and I see the environment we are in. I see people clutch their pearls but afraid to call a spade a spade.
This is undemocratic! This is illegal! This is unconstitutional!
Of course it is. We are in a fascistic spiral. We will stay in this spiral for as long as we subject ourselves to this and refuse to admit that we are in it. I want to remind you dear reader, that we can always do something. However, what something is, becomes more and more drastic by the hour. I also want to remind you; this is not the “cult of Trump” like some would want you to believe. When you cut off the head of a hydra, more appear. This entire party, must be reckoned with. It must be cast away from our society. The America as a “land of dreams and opportunities” is dying before our very eyes.
I want to issue you a final reminder, that Auschwitz was not in Germany.11 It is in Poland. It was made into a concentration camp in 1939 and had its first gassings in 1941. It is not going to happen all at once. It never did. It happens slowly, one ruling today. Ignored tomorrow. New ruling the next day… etc. etc.
I beg you to be smarter than this. I beg you to look around. ICE has already been spotted twice in Nashville in the last two days. Raiding immigrant neighborhoods, and grabbing families off of the streets. If you think “that’s not my problem” or “that won’t happen to me” then I need you to dig deeper. I need you to think about how history will remember you. I need you to want to be remembered as someone who stood up for change in a time where it was hard. A sacrifice for the people around you because we all do not deserve this. An assault on one of us, should be an assault on us all. It is wrong to deport American citizens. It is an affront to God, to claim it is in His name. There is no manner of speaking that should allow for this to be justified. There is no word to describe Donald Trump other than fascist. However, they do not care…
Sources:
2 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Immigration_and_Customs_Enforcement
3 – https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/05/daniel-lozano-camargo-el-salvador-deportation-00330300
5 – https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2025/04/17/home-growns-are-next/
7 – https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-claim-kilmar-abrego-garcias-finger-tattoos-ms-13/
10 – https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-approval-rating-polls-conservatives-2068477
11 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp
More Sources (If curious):
TODAY Show clip on Trump Homegrowns quote – https://youtu.be/9gLrZ2EYzJw?si=X99s591TQcBXMKMl
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