Oh, yes, they WILL deport Americans
They’re happening — but it isn’t just “illegals” being deported as it was initially sold to the xenophobes and bigots.
“Then they came for…”
Such is the refrain of Pastor Martin Niemoller’s icon Holocaust poem, “First They Came”.
Its theme, of course, is that eventually everyone becomes a target of a despotic regime intent on eliminating its perceived enemies. It starts with one marginalized group, but most assume they’re safe and ignore it. Then another group is targeted, and, again, most are relieved it isn't them and they just carry on with their lives. Another group is singled out. Another. And another. Until finally the regime comes for the rest, and no one is left to defend them.
History tells us it’s never just this or that group; once fascists identify a defenseless minority to persecute, more follow. There are always more defenseless minorities the strongman decides he must do without.
Remember those “MASS DEPORTATIONS NOW” signs people so proudly brandished at the Republican National Convention this summer?
They’re happening — but it isn’t just “illegals” being deported as it was initially sold to the xenophobes and bigots.
Tuesday evening, the first military flight carrying migrants from the United States landed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to begin re-purposing the facility that was used to imprison suspected terrorists (often unjustly) after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
It’s the optics that matter to MAGA, naturally. Probably not many are going to balk at the $4,675 per person flight on a C-17 military plane when a one-way first-class ticket on American Airlines from El Paso would cost around $853 when ridding the country of those pesky brown people makes them feel so tough, like they’re “owning the libs”.
After they’re gone, who is going to be next on the former host of Celebrity Apprentice’s enemies list to fill the 30,000 prisoner slots? Political enemies? transgender Americans? Members of the media? Educators? Democrats?
Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week met with Salvadorian president Nayib Bukele, who “has agreed to the most unprecedented, extraordinary, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world”.
The agreement?
Some may not see a problem farming out our prison population to another country even if those prisoners happen to be American citizens. After all, they’re prisoners, right?
Or are they “prisoners”?
The administration and its minions have been talking about “denaturalization”; i.e., stripping people’s citizenship, which would make them the “illegals,” the “criminals”, we’re purportedly going after.
As was reported in The Hill recently:
The process for invalidating naturalization was created by statute in 1906, providing that citizenship may be canceled if it was obtained through false statements or fraudulent omissions. It was used inconsistently in the 20th century, with periods of intense activity during the World Wars and the Cold War, and much less often in less parlous times.
By the early 21st century, denaturalization was mainly sought for accused terrorists, war criminals and human rights violators who had concealed their backgrounds on their visa and citizenship applications.
The first full week of the new administration, amidst an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid in Newark, NJ, agents detained several U.S. citizens, including a military veteran.
According to ICE, though, that’s just the price of doing business, as a statement after the raid explained agents “may encounter U.S. citizens while conducting field work and may request identification to establish an individual’s identity as was the case during a targeted enforcement operation at a worksite today in Newark.”
As explained in a piece in Meidas News:
In other words, in Donald Trump’s America, individuals must be ready at all times to show their papers to avoid being caught up in deportation sweeps to detention centers where they will be forced to wait to see an immigration judge to prove their status. The veteran was reportedly forced to prove his military service to avoid detention.
With an enemies list now revealed, it’s anyone’s guess who will among the those deprived of citizenship, rounded up, and deported.
Will it be former Special Council Jack Smith?
Former Rep. Liz Cheney?
Bill Barr, Joe Biden, Lloyd Austin, Sally Yates, Kamala Harris?
Me?
You?
The Felon-in-Chief promised, after all, to begin deporting at least “15 million people” he claims are “poisoning the blood” of our country.
Sound familiar?
It ought to.
That crazy little German man with the weird mustache 80 years ago collaborated with other countries beyond the reach of the law to carry out the persecution and mass murder of Jews, Roma, Poles, Slavs, homosexuals, and political dissidents. for the same stated reason.
We’re there, folks.
But we don’t have to slide into autocracy if we push back — NOW.
Get into the streets (non-violently), keep flooding our lawmakers’ offices with calls, and demand they take unprecedented lawful action to prevent the oligarchic takeover of our democracy.
It’s been working so far as we have seen multiple Democratic lawmakers publicly opposing President Elon Musk’s takeover of several federal agencies while the wanna-be dictator who was actually elected cheers him on and golfs.
Keep up the pressure.
This is our most desperate hour.
As always, Ted, you got to the point, clearly and without falter. If we could look through a psychological lens instead of a political one, we’d see that Trump and the MAGA mindset are simply anti-social and psychopathic. They do not and will not care who they annihilate and they can’t, by nature. We have to do all we can to stay awake and to deal with this as it really is. It’s very scary but I submit there are way more sane people in America than not. How do we reach critical mass where we all stand up and say no way to a despotic mindset?
Thank you for writing your take on it all!