Trump's first victims

ICE has already been preparing. They're hiring!... Raids in immigrant communities expected... The beginning of a long march...

Jan 20, 2025

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Remember the Muslim ban? I was there. This was the scene at DFW during the first few days of the first Trump administration.

Hello, and welcome to Day One. This is going to be a long and chaotic ride — even longer than the madness of the election and all *that* entailed. If you’re new here, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

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Now, on to the news…

***

A much shorter-haired me talking with a woman at DFW in 2017. She was trying to find her family during Trump’s Muslim ban.

The day after the Cubs won the World Series in 2016 I took off from Chicago for Texas to be with my then-girlfriend, now my wife. We watched on Election Night as Donald Trump pulled off a surprise victory. Sitting next to us: immigrants, some legal, some not, in a migrant shelter in Dallas.

These were the intended victims of the first Trump campaign. Back then, it was all about immigrants. Trump built nearly his entire 2016 campaign around the supposed threat of migrants. Now, he counts a lot more threats and enemies in his ever-growing list of people he seeks vengeance against. But starting today, it looks like the original victims of Trump — immigrants — will be the first to feel the effects of a presidency that more than anything is centered upon carrying out vengeance against Trump’s enemies.

Raids are expected today in largely Democratic cities with the purported purpose of rounding up undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes, and deporting them. But many undocumented immigrants who have caused no harm to their communities will likely be caught up in this dragnet, not that much of the nation cares — many, in fact, support harsh immigration policies.

For those of you reading this who do believe that immigrants should get a fair shake in this country, here are some links where you can help out.

Migrant advocacy groups to support

Rapid Response Toolkit from the Legal Aid and Justice Center - Pass this on to any immigrants you may know who have friends or family under threat
Migrant Equity Southeast, a migrant advocacy non-profit in Georgia
Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights
Annunciation House, a migrant advocacy non-profit in El Paso

If the raids that are expected this week are actually something different than normal operations carried out by the law enforcement agencies tasked with enforcing immigration law, then what strikes me is how quickly this is all being carried out. If these raids are anything more than standard operating procedure, then this level of coordination must have been going on for weeks or months. That means it’s been happening right under the Biden administration’s nose.

What does it mean when a federal law enforcement agency like ICE begins working on a president’s policies even before he takes office? One might call that a rogue law enforcement agency, and under Trump, I think we can expect ICE and DHS to become even more lawless than they’ve been before.

Past Doom immigration coverage

Meanwhile, red states have already laid the groundwork for Trump’s mass deportation plans by passing laws that require law enforcement agencies to coordinate with ICE. Those laws basically require local police to ask anyone they suspect of being an undocumented immigrant for proof of citizenship. If the person has none, these laws require local police to hand over immigrants — regardless of whether they have committed a crime — to ICE for deportation.

Law enforcement and other government agencies in blue cities and states have refused to play by these rules for a variety of reasons. First, there is a belief among police in some large cities that having these laws will make undocumented immigrants afraid to have any interaction with law enforcement. This makes it difficult for police who are trying to solve crimes in immigrant communities. Historically, this has been the case for Chicago, where police are already extremely busy trying to solve crimes and don’t need another reason for citizens to be wary of speaking with law enforcement.

Schools have also been hesitant to play ball with ICE — as being an undocumented immigrant should have no bearing on one’s access to public education. That’s why Chicago Public Schools reminded its staff that they are not to coordinate with ICE.

Whatever happens in the days and weeks to come, information will likely be difficult to come by. ICE is a black hole of information even in Democratic administrations, which means it’ll get even worse under Trump.

Among the many things regarding ICE that I’m curious about are the dozens of positions that appear to have been put online hastily in recent weeks with no exact salary attached. Among those positions are openings for nurses and other medical professionals. (If you or anyone you know has information about these positions, please contact me.) I can’t help but wonder whether this has anything to do with a purported plan by Trump’s immigration czar, Stephen Miller, to identify diseases carried by immigrants as a pretext to shut down the border and carry out extremist immigration policies. I don’t know, because getting answers out of ICE about anything is one of the most notoriously difficult tasks of being a reporter in the modern era.

No Inauguration Day in my lifetime has come with the prospect of such immediate chaos. But this is what the people voted for. It doesn’t feel very American to me to be anticipating a chaotic Day One of a presidential administration that’s marked by scenes of black-masked ICE agents knocking down doors in immigrant communities. Then again, maybe these scenes are as American as it gets.

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