EDITOR'S NOTE: The views and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not of Ottawa News Network.

As they bulldoze their way past court orders, constitutional precedents and common decency, President Trump and his loyalists are subjecting Americans to a steady drumbeat of fear, threats and warnings. The fear is aimed at protesters, journalists, scientists, educational leaders and elected Republicans who don’t bend the knee (though there are few of them left). Most of all, the fear is aimed at immigrants, including those who have been complying with the rules, reporting their status, attending school and paying taxes for years.

Trump’s mouthpieces would have us believe that immigrants are criminals, rapists and the dregs of society, seeking a soft life in the United States where they can terrorize Americans. But that isn’t true, unless you count a years-old traffic violation, or a missed child support payment, or any irregularity in paperwork as a crime deserving punishment that uproots you from wherever you have made a home, separates you from your family and community, and buries you in the new American gulag. Eventually, you will be deported to prisons in countries like El Salvador and South Sudan, who seem happy to serve as America’s jailors.

In March, Turkish grad student Rumeysa Ozturk was grabbed off the street in Boston by masked government agents who took her phone, handcuffed her, and bundled her out of the state to a detention center in Louisiana. The video of her arrest is the nightmare of any woman who has walked down a city street alone:  Unknown assailants, masked, with no visible ID to indicate they are anything but common thugs, overpower her. Rumeysa had co-written an opinion essay in her school’s newspaper asserting that Israel was committing Palestinian genocide. For that offense, she was ambushed and made to disappear. After six weeks, her lawyers and friends succeeded in getting her returned to Boston and her studies, but she still faces court actions regarding her visa.

The public has seen many more videos since then: The arrest of the Black mayor of Newark, New Jersey and the rough treatment of Congresswoman LaMonica McIver who were seeking to enter an ICE facility; raids on shopping centers, car washes, and bus stops in Los Angeles that triggered protests that subsequently led to the deployment of the National Guard, over the objection of California’s governor; the arrest of a Mexican boxer just last week.

These videos are a testament to the exercise of raw power by our government against individuals who are not engaged in criminal activity, but merely going about their lives.  These raids are ongoing at schools, courthouses, and work places. Many people of color are living in fear, avoiding work, school and church.

And just in time for Independence Day, Trump and Florida governor DeSantis posed for photos celebrating the opening of Alligator Alcatraz, a new ICE detention center in the middle of the Everglades.  They joked about “alligator cops” that escapees couldn’t outrun. One can also buy merch, just like at a Ted Nugent concert — T-shirts and hats that proclaim “Alligator Alcatraz. You Won’t Get Out Alive.” Funny, right?

The new detention center is housed in tents that are supposedly air-conditioned.  The cells are wire cages equipped with bunk beds. It is also in a state that is very hot, oppressively humid, rife with insects, and vulnerable to hurricanes that sweep through each season. It is a horrible location, and it is, indeed, designed to create fear. The hope is that immigrants will “self-deport” before facing such a place. Fear is obviously the point, and Republicans do find that amusing.

We see the effects of these federal policies to frighten immigrants in our job market. Immigrants clean our hospital floors, cook meals and wash dishes, mow lawns, pick crops, process meat, care for the elderly. Construction companies, nursing homes, restaurants, and any business that depends on cheap physical labor rely on immigrants who may not be fluent in English but are fluent in hard work. These are the people who came here, often from intolerable and unsafe situations, to pursue the American dream. They want what we all do: family, work, stability and safety.

For the Trump Administration, the persecution of immigrant communities is central to the demonstration of their power. In fact, the “Big Beautiful Bill” signed into law on July 4 increases the ICE budget by 365%, “… larger than the total budget for USAID used to be. The ICE detention budget increase is larger than cuts in education, or for SNAP … It is larger than cuts to NIH, CDC and cancer research combined. It is on the scale of the type of supplemental budgets that the US passed when engaged in foreign wars. 

If we judge a nation by where it puts its money, then we are becoming a police state.

And who will be the next victims? Journalists, dissenters, political opponents of Trump, naturalized citizens?

Think that won’t happen? Don’t be so sure. Down in Florida on July 1, “Trump acknowledged that he didn't know if deporting U.S. citizens who are convicted of crimes is legal. ‘We'll have to find that out legally. I'm just saying if we had the legal right to do it, I would do it in a heartbeat,’ he added. ‘I don't know if we do or not, we're looking at that right now.’” 

There you have it, from the horse’s mouth.

What we see happening to immigrants is wrong. It is cruel. It is immoral. It violates values enshrined in our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and due process.

It would be un-American, if 49.8 % of voters hadn’t chosen Trump to be our leader. Buyer’s remorse doesn’t solve the problem. Protests, resistance, and moral courage might.

How to submit an opinion

Ottawa News Network accepts columns and letters to the editor from everyone. Letters should be about 300 words and columns should not exceed 1,000 words. ONN reserves the right to fact-check submissions as well as edit for length, clarity and grammar. Please send submissions to newsroom@ottawanewsnetwork.org.