The Trump doctrine: delegalize to deport

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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:

Donald Trump’s war on immigrants is so intense that even nationals of countries such as Nicaragua, Honduras, Cuba, and Venezuela, traditionally more aligned with Republicans, have not been spared from detention, deportation, or losing protections granted by programs such as TPS or humanitarian parole.

The Trump administration just now announced the cancellation of TPS for 72,000 Hondurans and 4,000 Nicaraguans who had been protected from deportation and had work permits since 1999. Add to that the cancellation of humanitarian parole for half a million Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, and the elimination of TPS for 348,000 Venezuelans and 521,000 Haitians, to name a few.

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that these are high numbers of documented immigrants that Trump wants to turn into undocumented immigrants so that they will self-deport or be detained and deported, allowing him to reach his goal of removing one million immigrants from the country annually.

These immigrants are not the “criminals” that Trump claimed he would deport. With no significant number of “criminals” and a drop in irregular border crossings, the plan is to outlaw authorized immigrants to make them vulnerable to deportation and meet his quotas.

But it is not just about quotas; it is about removing immigrants of color who do not fit the profile of the white United States, similar to Norman Rockwell’s mid-20th century artworks. The war is not against “criminal” immigrants; it is against immigrants of color in a futile attempt to “whiten” a country where minorities are already the majority, where demographic changes have reached every corner of the nation and, in the process, are making the United States a diverse and stronger country.

If not, look at who is losing their TPS protections. These are people who have been in this country for decades, have established families, work, and pay taxes.

According to a report by Fwd.us, “TPS holders contribute about $21 billion annually to the U.S. economy, in addition to the payment of $5.2 billion in combined federal, payroll, state, and local taxes.”

But Trump and his lieutenant, Stephen Miller, couldn’t care less about the billions of dollars that immigrants, with or without documents, contribute to the economy because prejudice weighs more heavily.

The irony is that a large number of immigrants affected by the termination of programs such as TPS or humanitarian parole live in Florida, where many of their relatives or friends support Trump.

In other words, Trump does not care about acting to the detriment of those who support him politically.

One would think that the detention and deportation of Cubans, for example, would generate more outrage in that community. But even the Republican federal legislators who represent this community in Congress do not dare to challenge Trump for fear of becoming the target of his wrath and electoral revenge.

South Florida, a historic enclave of immigrants and refugees, is now making headlines for a controversial immigration detention center in the middle of the Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.” Trump and his minions mock immigrants detained in a place teeming with alligators, and even Florida Republicans are profiting from immigrant’s pain selling merchandise such as T-shirts and caps bearing the name of the place.

CBS News reported that the danger at the center is not the alligators but the deplorable conditions inside the facility, according to several detainees. These conditions include insects and maggots in the food, being denied bathing for days, constant 24-hour lighting, and flooding when it rains. They described it as a form of “torture.”

In a harsh editorial, El Nuevo Herald and the Miami Herald compared the tents used to house refugees from the Mariel exodus 45 years ago to the controversial “Alligator Alcatraz”: “Back in 1980, local leaders worked to help refugees. This time, the optics are deliberate. A detention camp in a swamp sends a clear message: You are not welcome.”

How many of the detainees have been delegalized by Trump?

The original Spanish version is here.