Men dressed in fatigues and body armor searching schools for children used to only happen when our country’s addiction to weapons led to yet another mass murder. Now we can get ready to add another American tragedy under that heading.
The new and more cruel Trump administration policy on immigration spares no one, including innocent children.
This is likely not what people who voted for him had in mind. Many, including those with family and friends now at risk of detention and deportation, believed he would only pursue hardened “criminal” migrants for mass deportation. They believed they would be safe from his sweeps. They believed their contributions to our communities would shield them. They believed an otherwise law-abiding life would not make them targets.
They believed wrong.
Trump and his hardline immigration administration believe that anyone entering or living in America without proper documentation is a criminal. No matter that living here undocumented is only a civil offense, his administration views them all as bad people and criminals.
Why else would Trump have issued an executive order ending birthright citizenship? Nevermind that anyone born on our soil has been granted such status for more than 150 years since enactment of the 14th Amendment. Nevermind that it has been a bedrock principle in a nation now composed almost entirely of migrants and their descendants who all arrived over the past 500 years.
While two federal judges have blocked enforcement of that particular order, Trump has the DOJ — nominally the Department of Justice, but now substantively the Department of Jawohl — appealing those decisions. His administration claims that such citizenship attracts migrants who he said are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
If he gets his way, expect those school sweeps to get underway. And it won’t stop there. Expect to see them in hospitals and churches. They will continue the door-to-door raids we saw last week in Aurora that put everyone at risk of being swept up.
How long before citizens are expected to start carrying papers with them at all times?
If that historical reference seems a bit over the top, you have not been paying attention. He is openly working toward using Guantanamo Bay as an internment camp. The U.S. military is likely to have an increasing role in his actions. Just as I completed this column, the DOJ issued a directive that undocumented status would be treated as an aggravating factor subjecting anyone convicted of a capital crime to the death penalty.
The raids are just the first step.
As any expert on the history of autocracies will tell you, dictators do not simply stop with the first wave. The same fate could be applied to opposition political leaders, critical media and people Trump has already referred to as the “enemies within.”
Of course, this is doing nothing to help our country. To the contrary, it is actively harming us. Diverting so much time, energy and resources to a xenophobic pursuit keeps the administration from addressing everyday worries like housing prices and inflation that continue to affect everyone here, citizen or not. It certainly is doing nothing to bring down egg prices.
It is also creating long-term harms. Children skipping school out of worry will only fall behind their peers. Study after study has shown that such educational decline leads to lower economic outlooks and increased crime. That is especially true when mixed with increased stressors such as poverty, food scarcity and family disruption. So, effectively everything that Trump’s migration policies tend to exacerbate.
The whirlwind of chaos created within the first few weeks of Trump’s return to the White House has been overwhelming. From the DOGE takeover of federal databases and computer systems to the gutting of USAID and the humanitarian causes it supported. But none seem to be as long-term detrimental as marching heavily armed individuals through our neighborhood institutions to break up families and communities.
On the hopeful front, he will not get there without facing resistance. Churches are already preparing their congregations to understand their rights as they minister to migrants. Schools and teachers are making plans to protect the sanctity of classrooms. Volunteers across the country are working to help in whatever way they can.
I have personally reached out to the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network to volunteer pro bono legal work. Working with the Colorado Bar Association, the group has been actively training nonimmigration lawyers with crash courses to help in specific settings. The need will only rise in coming weeks and months.
It seems hard to believe that it has taken only a few weeks to get here. It seems even harder to imagine living through the next four years (or more?). There is little choice but to take it a day at a time. Just like many of us first learned in school.
Mario Nicolais is an attorney and columnist who writes on law enforcement, the legal system, health care and public policy. Follow him on Bluesky: @MarioNicolais.bsky.social.
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