Immigrant Heritage Month: Urgent Call to Action

Maribel Hastings / Advisor at America’s Voice

June is Immigrant Heritage Month, and this year it is commemorated amid one of the most virulent attacks against immigrants who enrich the country with their work, tax payments, labor in vital industries of our economy, culture, ingenuity, and entrepreneurship.

But Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant crusade dismisses all these contributions and labels all immigrants, documented or undocumented, as “criminals” who must be removed from the country.

Time and again, it is confirmed that Trump’s network goes beyond immigrants with criminal records. This past weekend, one of those detained was an 18-year-old high school student from Milford, Massachusetts, Marcelo Gomes-Da Silva, who was on his way to volleyball practice. Apparently, agents stopped the car driven by the young man because their original target was Marcelo’s father, who was not traveling with him.

His detention has sparked criticism and protests from the community and is one of the clearest examples that the core of Trump’s immigration policy is cruelty — with no distinction between a criminal and a high school student with no criminal record who becomes a deportation priority. A young man who arrived in the United States from Brazil as a child, is an athlete, an honor student at his high school, and a member of the school band.

Ximena Arias-Cristóbal, a 19-year-old Dreamer, was detained by ICE in Georgia — an experience she said marked her forever. In a virtual press conference organized by America’s Voice, she said, “This is not just an immigration problem; it is a human rights problem.” “People are being stripped of their dignity and basic freedoms, and this is something we cannot ignore.”

Similar cases are repeated across the country, of immigrants detained and deported who do not pose a threat to society. For example, a waitress from Kennett, Missouri — a town that supported Trump and now questions why Carol, originally from Hong Kong, who has lived and worked in this community for 20 years and has two sons and a daughter who are U.S. citizens, was detained and could be deported.

The community has rallied to defend Carol by signing petitions to prevent her deportation and raising funds for her family. Carol told journalist Greg Sargent on his podcast The Daily Blast that “I was very surprised. I didn’t know so many people cared about me.”

In San Diego, immigration agents descended on a restaurant to detain employees as if it were a military operation. The community intervened, and the agents responded by throwing smoke bombs.

Agents also show up at immigration courts to detain immigrants attending their routine appointments — mostly people with no criminal history who do not pose a national security threat. They are easy targets at a time when Trump wants to increase the number of detainees and deportees.

Although many communities have raised their voices and the judiciary has blocked many of the president’s actions, we are dealing with an executive branch that openly defies judicial rulings, has an ally in the legislative branch, and is employing tactics typical of an autocracy.

The flood of actions by this administration on immigration and other issues aims to overwhelm and stun the public, activists, and sectors trying to stop many of these unconstitutional and harmful initiatives that do not respect due process or the rule of law.

To make matters worse, the fiscal measure approved by the House and now moving to the Senate dramatically increases the budget of immigration agencies to expand the deportation machinery and continue sowing terror in the community.

This is not to mention the draconian measures that drastically cut funds for Medicaid, health insurance for the poor, food stamps, and other programs to finance a lucrative tax cut for billionaires.

The inherent danger is that all of this becomes normalized, just as the falsehoods and lies emanating from Trump and his followers have become normalized.

This Immigrant Heritage Month, there is an urgent call to action.