A-Infos (en) Italy, UCADI, #198 - Trump and the hunt for immigrants (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

In difficulty in foreign policy and in search of results, Donald Trump 
has unleashed a hunt for immigrants within the country. The task of 
carrying out this task is carried out by Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement (Ice), the federal agency created with the aim of enforcing 
immigration laws within American territory and fighting transnational 
crime. ---- It is worth remembering that immigration policy has been the 
strong point of Donald Trump's electoral propaganda; his criticisms of 
Camala Harris have focused on the inefficiency of her immigration 
policy, for which she had been delegated. For this reason, Trump's 
decisions on the matter were highly anticipated, especially given the 
dismay caused by his initiatives on duties, which ended up negatively 
impacting the country's economy and above all encouraged the growth of 
inflation and made economic activities uncertain due to the volatility 
of the President's decisions. For this reason, Trump decided to 
strengthen the structure built on March 1, 2003, following the creation 
of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), born from the merger of 
investigative and internal control elements of the former U.S. Customs 
Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
This reorganization was sanctioned by the Homeland Security Act of 2002. 
Since then, the DHS has taken over the immigration and customs control 
functions previously performed by other agencies. This process led to 
the merger of several divisions, giving birth to ICE, which has become 
the main investigative agency of the DHS. The task of the structure, 
which has over 21,000 operators and a billion-dollar budget, is to 
strengthen internal controls on immigration and prevent threats to 
national security. The structure operates in cities, communities and 
workplaces, unlike the border police, the Border Patrol, which operates 
along the borders.
But operationally, it is the Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), a 
directorate of ICE, that deals with the identification, arrest, 
detention and deportation of individuals who are illegally in the United 
States or who have violated immigration laws. ERO's mission is to 
protect national security and public safety through the enforcement of 
immigration laws.
Since June 6, ERO has conducted high-impact operations in urban 
communities, especially in large cities governed by Democrats, 
coordinated operations that have led to the arrest of hundreds of 
people, in California, in the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles, 
defined as sanctuary cities because they are tolerant in welcoming 
immigrants. The raids of recent days are part of a strategy imposed by 
the Trump administration, which has set a goal of 3,000 arrests per day, 
well above the previous average of 800-1,500. ICE has therefore found 
itself having to operate at an extraordinarily aggressive pace and in 
ways. It should be noted that the operations took place in symbolic 
places of the urban fabric: the Fashion District, warehouses like Home 
Depot and popular neighborhoods like Westlake, Paramount and Compton. 
With agents in tactical gear, unmarked vehicles and stun grenades; the 
raids - reminiscent of those for the forced recruitment of young 
Ukrainians for the front - have aroused a strong sense of intimidation, 
making the operations appear more like military incursions than police 
interventions.

The objectives of the Trump administration

Taking advantage of the discontent of a part of the MAGA movement that 
complained about the inertia of the administration, leveraging Stephen 
Miller, the so-called "border czar" Tom Homan, on Trump's instructions, 
has imposed an ambitious program on the agency with record figures, in 
order to exercise mass deterrence, making every irregular immigrant feel 
at risk of deportation, even if some commentators, former progressives, 
define these procedures as repatriation, even though they often have the 
cages of Guantanamo as their final destination. The raids were carried 
out by patrols of agents who operated with military tactics, without 
clearly visible warrants and who acted under the pretext of 
"investigating crimes." Those targeted were mainly Arab, Latino or Asian 
workers, even if they had no criminal record and there were no concrete 
charges or specific crimes to contest. Taking inspiration from the 
protests of citizens who tried to collectively deal with these 
interventions, on June 7 Trump placed the California National Guard 
under federal control and mobilized 2,000 soldiers, which later became 
4,000, to which were added 700 marines to be used for public order 
purposes. This is the first decision of its kind since Lyndon Johnson in 
1965, who, acting for opposite reasons, deployed troops to Alabama to 
defend civil rights. Taking on the citizens' discomfort, local 
authorities, represented by the Governor of California and the Mayor of 
Los Angeles, invoked the SB 54 law, which prohibits the use of local 
resources to support federal operations in the fight against 
immigration. They did not make available the facilities to host the 
National Guard. The progressive administration of the city of Grendale, 
in accordance with the provisions of the law, decided to terminate the 
contract with ICE regarding short-term detention in the municipal prison 
(six to twelve hours, without fingerprints or formal booking) of people 
arrested, arguing that the agreement had become "divisive" for the 
community, in contrast with SB 54 and with the progressive civic 
identity of the city and that therefore reasons of public interest made 
the contract unenforceable. There have also been cases in which local 
police have come to the defense of schools to prevent the arrest of 
parents of students who were taking part in the delivery of 
end-of-course diplomas, parents who sometimes did not have valid 
documents with a residence permit. Local authorities have also done 
everything they could to deny support to the federal intervention 
ordered by the President, contesting his power to intervene in the 
management of public order, which in their opinion, had not been put in 
danger.

Citizens take to the streets

It was not only Californian cities that opposed the presidential order, 
but the protest movement quickly spread to all the large cities where 
ICE intervened. Communities, entire families, many young Latino 
activists, for whom the raids represent not only a legal risk, but also 
an attack on their identity and culture, have taken to the streets. 
Roadblocks, fires (including Waymo self-driving cars) and clashes in the 
streets characterised the first weekend of protests, while the police 
responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs, denouncing the 
presence of "illegal gatherings".

The protests have amplified and become widespread, taking inspiration 
from the parade organised for June 15 by the President to celebrate the 
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the US army, 
which also coincides with his birthday. The parade, wanted by Trump, 
which would have cost 90 million, was strongly desired by him to satisfy 
his ego, after having attended the parade in France, to celebrate the 
Normandy landing, organised by Macron and above all envious of the one 
celebrating the victory in the "Great Patriotic War" organised annually 
in Moscow by Punti.
The country responded to the initiative with 1,800 demonstrations under 
the slogan "No Kings". In response to the few thousand soldiers who 
marched in front of the President in the streets of Washington, millions 
of people took to the streets to protest across the country, in a 
climate that was not always peaceful. There were strong tensions in the 
demonstrations held in San Francisco and Los Angeles, but the most 
serious incidents took place in Utah, in Salt Lake City, where there was 
one death and several injuries. In Washington, 60 protesters were 
arrested in front of the White House.
But what sheds light on the climate of the country is what happened in 
Minnesota, where a man disguised as a policeman killed the Democratic 
representative in the local Parliament and her husband and injured two 
other Democratic politicians. But the measures adopted by the President 
have not been without effects on a more strictly economic level, and 
this is because the attack on migrants affects that large part of them 
that is used above all for agricultural work and services, putting in 
crisis not only the activities of commerce and distribution, but also 
those of farmers, the traditional constituency of the President.
There is no doubt that the indiscriminate and sudden arrests, the 
illegal detentions, the raids organized in shops and supermarkets, in 
shopping centers, keep workers away from their workplaces and in fact 
block economic activities, to the point that the administration was 
forced to give instructions to ICE to reduce and modulate its 
interventions in order to soften tensions and social unease. Despite 
this, however, the protest continues and grows in intensity, especially 
given the fact that the President seems to want to engage the country in 
another war, the one against Iran, a choice that is causing growing 
protests in the streets.
However, it seems that the weight of the Jewish lobby will eventually 
prevail, and this despite the fact that in reality there is not even 
certain evidence that Iran was proceeding with the construction of the 
atomic bomb. Therefore, the Iraq pattern is being proposed again and the 
country risks being involved in a war even though there is no idea of 
the consequences of the choice that is emerging.

The Editorial Staff

https://www.ucadi.org/2025/06/22/trump-e-la-caccia-allimmigrato/
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