It was a typical Tuesday night when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers raided a Bronx apartment complex. The event drew a lot of media coverage, especially when Kristi Noem, homeland security secretary, posted a video on social media with the caption, “Dirtbags like this will continue to be removed from our streets.” Thirty-nine people were arrested that night in raids across New York City and Long Island, inspiring fear both throughout the state and the country about who may be next.
Some of these arrests were recorded on video, including that of a Venezuelan man wanted by state police for armed burglary in Aurora, Colo. What leaders like Noem failed to point out was that two other Venezuelan men arrested in connection to the same burglary had already been identified and arrested under the administration of former President Joe Biden. Nor has there been much mention of the fact that over 400 migrants were released from detainment since the beginning of the second term of President Donald Trump. The first Trump administration had fewer deportations than the administration of former President Barack Obama, and Biden’s last year as president saw a 10-year high of deportations. While the agency’s 39 arrests are higher than the past two years’ average number in New York City, it remains to be seen if this pace will be maintained. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul described the aforementioned Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids as standard procedure.
While it is true that the numbers the current Trump administration is reporting are higher than average — 828 per day as compared to 282 per day this time last year — these reports are coming out a lot faster than normal. It normally takes months to report the arrests, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement verifies whether the arrested person ended up being released. Experts have said that the administration may be putting out incorrect or incomplete data in order to bolster its political goals. They want to show their supporters that they are following through on the promise to catch undocumented immigrants with a criminal background, as well as fearmonger to undocumented immigrants that any one of them could be next.
New York City might not be deporting or arresting immigrants at a more rapid rate than previously, but the media coverage of a major raid in a huge, Democrat-voting city sends a message: the Trump administration is cracking down everywhere.
This type of performance can also be seen in Trump’s executive order to send migrants to Guantánamo Bay. Experts have said that it would be cheaper to house the migrants somewhere within the continental United States and a lot less legally murky given the fact that the facility is not located in U.S. territory. But by invoking the name Guantánamo Bay, with its controversial history of torture and use of practices otherwise deemed illegal on U.S. soil, Trump inspires fear. Thus far almost 100 people have been flown out to the detention camp.
Trump is not the first person to make an example out of the few to inspire fear in many. Lee Kuan Yew, former prime minister of Singapore, infamously told his advisors to deal with the influx of immigrants to Singapore by caning two or three of them. His logic was that it would inspire such fear in the other thousands of immigrants that they would flee the country. Ten thousand immigrants left within the next two weeks.
The Trump administration has made actual, harmful impacts on people’s lives. He passed legislation limiting transgender people’s access to military service and gender-affirming care, removed the United States from the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization and limited money going toward scientific research, among many other things. In terms of immigration, he has ended Temporary Protection Status for Venezuelans, ordered expedited removal which allows for the deportation of people without a court hearing and mandated that the Department of Homeland Security makes sure work permits are not given to undocumented immigrants. Some of these pieces of legislation have already been put in place while others are still pending, but they paint a picture of the kind of term that Trump wants to have.
As Tufts students, we need to take in all of the information being provided by the Trump administration with a critical eye. We must be wary of his claims that all of the immigrants being deported are criminals. The administration makes examples out of people who have committed murder or are members of illegal drug trades, but they have simultaneously been expanding the criteria determining which individuals can be deported, beginning to include people who entered the country legally. We must also question the administration’s attempts to fearmonger. These methods have been used before, like in Singapore, and we can apply that historical knowledge to the present. Trump may be capable of causing damage to the people, but it is necessary that we see the limits of his power.
