Trump gives no respite

Maribel Hastings, America’s Voice

Washington, DC – Below is a column by Maribel Hastings from America’s Voice en Español translated to English from Spanish. It ran in several Spanish-language media outlets earlier this week:

Apart from being more damaging than the first, this second administration of Donald Trump gives no respite. Each day is a new attack against something or someone. And the worst part is that U.S. Americans, including those who voted for him and are now affected by his policies, are practically paralyzed not knowing how to respond, or simply taking this serious threat too lightly despite Trump’s obvious autocratic leanings.

It seems like the American people believe that democracy is eternal and guaranteed, or that the dangerous and exhausting reality show in which we are living with this president, daily, will have no effect on our system of government or our individual liberties. Trump began to erode them ever since he assumed the presidency for the first time in 2017. And since January of this year, he has been determined to complete his Machiavellian plan.

This week it was reported that the Trump administration detained, with the intention of deporting, activist Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent, Columbia University student, and leader of student protests against Israel, demanding a cease-fire in Gaza. Khalil is a permanent resident, married to a U.S. citizen. Trump and the Republicans accused Khalil of being a sympathizer of the terrorist group, Hamas. As of this writing, Khalil has not been formally charged with something that justifies the revocation of his residency and deportation, which has been temporarily paused by a judge.

Some sectors consider the detention and possible deportation of a permanent resident, because his ideas are contrary to those of the administration, to be an attack on the First Amendment of the Constitution, which protects the freedom of speech and assembly.

Although national Jewish organizations are divided on this topic, one of them, the American Jewish Committee (AJC), declared that Kahlil should receive due process of law before being deported. “The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is appalled by the views and actions of Mahmoud Khalil. Universities have an obligation to ensure that antisemitic behavior such as his does not lead to intimidation and harassment of Jewish students…. Should the government prove its case in a prompt and public legal proceeding, and Khalil is afforded due process, then deportation will be fully justified.”

Prior and current actions of this administration echo the McCarthyism that the United States experienced between 1950 and 1956. Penning lists of enemies, persecuting opponents, lying, bullying, harassing, using demagoguery. But above all, offering an “enemy” up to their enraged base. For the Republican Senator Joe McCarthy, they were communists or presumed communists. For Trump, they are “criminal” immigrants, the “radical left,” the “fake press.”

If they destroy lives it doesn’t matter, because cruelty is their trademark.

Moreover, for example, Trump has been intensifying his offensive against immigrants. Recently he resumed the practice of detaining immigrant families with their children, despite the humanitarian and psychological disaster of said practice, and incarcerating them in two camps, Dilley and Karnes, in Texas, which have made news for their history of abuses against immigrants, like trapping children in cages, and even deaths in custody. And despite the fact of the humanitarian and psychological impact of separating children from their parents at the border, another Trump public policy from the first term that is still being felt. A majority of immigrants detained and deported are not criminals.

In another sign of cruelty against immigrants, this week the Trump administration announced the CBP Home application for immigrants to announce their intention of deporting themselves. They are substituting CBP One, which allowed them to initiate their process of seeking asylum in an orderly way, thereby taking pressure off the border.

But it’s not just immigrants. Vital programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, and those on which millions of U.S. Americans depend, are in Trump’s sights for possible reduction of funds to finance tax cuts for the most privileged groups and increase spending on defense and the deportation machine.

And his policies to raise tariffs on products from his main trading partners, Canada and Mexico, have contributed to the stock market tanking and threats of a recession.

Trump is, without a doubt, a dangerous, destabilizing agent who gives no respite.