Although reportedly planned during the last days of the Obama Administration, they’ve come to be associated with President Trump due to his well-known and hardline stance towards illegal immigration. Also, it can’t be ruled out that his new team had a role in influencing the range of enforceable offenses that the authorities could act on. This is especially pertinent because of the case of Ms. Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, an Arizona mother who was busted four years ago for being an illegal immigrant but previously allowed to remain in the US so long as she regularly checked in with the authorities. The last time she did so, however, she was apprehended and kicked out of the country, something which would have been unthinkable under the Obama Administration but might become commonplace during the law and order rule of President Trump.
Law enforcement moves such as the one against Garcia de Rayos are praised by Trump’s supporters, many of which voted for him because of his no-nonsense attitude towards law-breakers such as her, while his critics have slammed these sorts of deportations as “inhumane” and a “violation of human rights”. As expected, the latest ICE raids have further polarized the already deeply divided American society. On the one hand, they were received as a godsend by Trump’s base which was overjoyed at seeing their candidate follow through on his signature campaign promise, while on the other, his detractors saw them as a signal that the US had begun its descent into a “fascist dystopia”. To be fair, all that happened was that the authorities enforced the country’s immigration law, but many Americans had already become so complacent with the blind eye that was previously turned to this infringement that they began to take it for granted as a characteristic of US society.
Or, at least that’s how it was perceived, because the Obama Administration actually deported a record-breaking 2.5 million illegal immigrants across its eight years in power. Nevertheless, the whole country is in an uproar over Trump deporting less than 700 on plans that were reportedly drawn up under his predecessor’s government, which suggests that another factor must be at play to inspire such vocal opposition to his relatively less severe law enforcement initiative.
Andrew Korybko is joined by Fernando Martinez, Independent news analyst from South Florida and Gabriel Acuna, Mexican political commentator.
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