ICE's deportation actions signal that anyone who isn't a US citizen is 'at risk – period,' immigration attorney says.

Summary

Wisconsin resident Bradley Bartell voted for Trump’s promise to crack down on “criminal illegal immigrants,” but now his Peruvian wife Camila Muñoz has been detained by ICE.

Muñoz, from Peru, overstayed her visa but had applied for legal residency. On their way home from a honeymoon, immigration agents detained her at a Puerto Rico airport.

Despite no criminal record, she remains in a Louisiana detention center. Her case reflects ICE’s broadened enforcement that now includes documented immigrants.

Bartell, once supportive of stricter immigration policies, now questions the impact on families like his own.

  • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    11 hours ago

    ICE is under extreme pressure from the White House to ramp up enforcement. Top ICE officials, including the newly installed acting director, were re-assigned within weeks of Trump taking office, allegedly over frustrations that detentions and deportations weren’t rising fast enough.

    I think this is really the main cause. Trump envisioned that once he took office, he would flush the millions of illegals who voted for Biden in 2020 like rats. (I picked that analogy on purpose, he thinks they’re sub-human).

    The problem is that those people simply don’t exist. They never tried to vote (because that is a sure ticket to getting kicked out permanently, after spending time in jail). But most immigrants that are easy to find are the legal kind.

    So, when ICE simply couldn’t find the vermin in the numbers Trump wanted, he fired them all and put in new people willing to go farther. So now, any non-citizen is suspect (as well as citizens who don’t “look like” citizens). This is going to continue to escalate. This will turn into a major diplomatic problem. Other countries will need to start denying automatic visas to US citizens. Trump won’t pay attention until his Corporate masters yell at him for making it so they can’t just jet off to Europe whenever they want.

    • BigFig@lemmy.worldEnglish
      51·
      7 hours ago

      he would flush the millions of illegals who voted for Biden in 2020 like rats. (I picked that analogy on purpose, he thinks they’re sub-human).

      And that is the Nazi (and other authoritarian, not even just right fascists) talking point. The painting of a people as “Vermin”, the villainization of a minority or even a majority or comparatively similar size group. The point is to gear your people to think deep down that the “others” are beneath them, beneath deserved respect, sub human scum that you shouldn’t be worried about what happens to them.