Trump Kicks Off Re-Election with Some Light Ethnic Cleansing

Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in. Mexico, using their strong immigration laws, is doing a very good job of stopping people…….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2019

Trump’s oddly quiet policy rollout for 2020 is rounding up and deporting 11 million people based on their ethnicity or national origin. That is not what immigration enforcement looks like, that is what an ethnic cleansing looks like.

Of course, Trump sure hopes and expects that his base will see this action for exactly what it is: chucking them damn Mexicans back ‘cross the border. Yeahh! That is some bloody red, red meat he’s tossing out.

“Let’s have a great cleansing of this nation” I can practically hear Donald Trump say. “We’re going to get rid of all the criminal aliens, believe me!”

Trump didn’t actually say that, but among various attacks on refugees and immigrants, he did call them: “criminal aliens”. Expect to hear that phrase again.

Some have pointed out that the resources don’t really exist for Trump to task ICE and/or CBP with his “removal” effort. And that’s true. But he also doesn’t have the resources to pursue a full scale internment of refugee awaiting their hearings, either, but he’s trying – and immiserating thousands by so doing. I have no doubt he will harm as many people as he needs to in his quest for four more years of power.

There is conjecture that he could retask existing investigative units in ICE to the job of tracking down and arresting otherwise law-abiding immigrants. However, those investigators are the frontline of defense against human trafficking. Retasking them would cause considerable disruption to existing cases.

To be perfectly frank, at a clip of about half a million a year, the Obama Admin deported millions over the years. All Trump has to do is continue that pace or accelerate it slightly and claim it a victory, regardless of facts on the ground. I’ll bet he’ll claim direct credit for the several hundred thousand already deported under his Administration, despite only deporting at about half the rate of the Obama Admin.

I don’t doubt that he will do his utmost to get the wall-to-wall media with whatever limited resources he can bring to bear on the “removals”. You might think that people will be repulsed by seeing the inevitable cell-phone footage of these “removals”. On the contrary, I bet that Trump will practically put the footage in his campaign commercials.

He wants maximum division on his own terms.

Of course, some GOP members of the Arizona delegation seem fine with idea of selling ethnic cleansing for votes.

The response from Arizona members of Congress fell along party lines, with Republican Biggs applauding the president’s announcement.

“The reality is ICE is prepared to do that. These are people that already have a removal order, and so I think that’s appropriate,” Biggs, R-Gilbert, said in Washington, D.C. In an interview on KTAR radio, he gave an estimate of 2 million deportees, saying it would apply to people who have been determined through government processes to be in the country illegally.

Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, in a tweet, called it “fear mongering” and said the president’s plan would rip families apart. He called instead for “real solutions that uphold our values.”

…

“They’re selling these children, they’re recycling these children,” Biggs said. “If we enforced our laws, then they’re not going to try and cross the border. Those kids are going to be safer.”

Source: ADI, “Trump’s pledge to quickly deport ‘millions’ earns praise, provokes alarm”

What is Biggs claiming here about the children being sold and/or recycled?

Apparently, this is an unsubstantiated rumor prevalent among ICE and BP. But mostly you hear such rumors among right-wing politicians.

There are constant claims of smugglers using the same children over and over to help people claim they are families of refugees.

There have been no actual cases featuring such children, however.

Michelle Brané, director of migrant rights and justice at the Women’s Refugee Commission, says:

“It makes no sense. They claim it’s driving kids into trafficker’s hands and creating an incentive,” Brane said. “What it does is takes kids out of dangerous routes and into the hands of agencies processing them and undermining the trafficker.”

If “recycling rings” were a serious concern for the administration, it would invest more money into smuggling investigations as opposed to cutting funds and redirecting them to arrest, detain, and deport immigrants, said Brané.

“If this is really happening, we need to get to the bottom of it,” she said. “What is clear is there is not a realistic effort to address this.”

So this is Biggs just doing what Biggs does; spin right-wing fantasies into right-wing lies. I’m sure Biggs’ golem, Paul Gosar, is right there with him in backing up the President’s call for an immigration Gestapo.

Biggs’ utter disdain for the suffering of people during such “removals” is on full display here. He thinks invading people’s homes and dragging them away from their families is “appropriate”. At least he’s still insisting there be a removal order before deporting them; give him credit for that?

Biggs seems committed enough to sycophancy to stick by that language, however, even as the videos of grieving families come rolling in, but we’ll see…