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Tom Berry of Kennebunk is a retired public school special educator.
Despite the assertions from this president describing Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations as “going after violent criminals,” the “worst of the worst,” and murderers, rapists, and child predators, what is obvious is something quite different. What is actually happening is targeting — for the purpose of terrorizing — Black and brown people, including even some who are U.S. citizens.
Of the more than 200,000 people detained by ICE between October 2024 and this past June, 65% had no criminal convictions at all, and of those with any kind of record, only 7% had committed a violent crime. The other offenses being for misdemeanors like traffic violations.
The vast majority of undocumented people have braved often daunting — and at times, life-threatening — challenges in the hope of finding a better life for themselves and their children. In some cases, they were fleeing very real imminent threats of violence in their home countries.
The vast majority of these people are hardworking members of our communities who contribute much to society. They often work at jobs that few U.S. citizens are willing to do. They pay for rent and utilities and shop in our stores. Their kids go to school with our kids. They also pay their fair share in taxes, something our billionaire class has largely been able to avoid thanks to the politicians they own.
And, speaking of money: Remember the spending bill that was recently passed by the Republican-dominated U.S. House and Senate and jubilantly signed into law by the Republican president? This bill gave a massive tax break to billionaires while laying the groundwork for cutting Medicaid for rural hospitals and nursing homes, along with food assistance for children. It also gave nearly $76 billion to the Department of Homeland Security to rapidly expand its ICE anti-immigrant program — nearly three times its previous budget. Under this expansion, each new recruit is offered up to $50,000 as a sign-on bonus, a salary ranging from $50,000 to $90,000 a year and up to $60,000 in student debt relief.
All of this to support an ongoing travesty of historical proportions. It was recently announced that the Trump administration is even refurbishing a military base that had been used as an internment camp for Japanese-American families during World War II.
These ICE agents are not police. They largely ignore the constitutional guarantee of due process, they will seize people without legitimate warrants and often wear masks and refuse to identify themselves. They look like bounty hunters, plain and simple.
And there’s a highly relevant detail in this shameful story that many have apparently forgotten. In 2024, a strong bipartisan immigration reform bill — co-crafted and approved by the conservative GOP senator from Oklahoma James Lankford — was on the verge of becoming law when Donald Trump swooped in and demanded that it be torpedoed. (He didn’t want then-President Joe Biden to get a “win” on immigration right before the election.)
So, do Republicans truly want to solve the challenge of a broken immigration system? Clearly not. For them, it appears that sustaining an unconstitutional and immoral campaign against people less fortunate than the rest of us is but one facet of a much larger plan to replace our democracy with authoritarian rule.
Kidnapping our neighbors is not OK. It is despicable. And it is unAmerican.
