{"id":16141,"date":"2025-05-29T14:49:15","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T14:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=16141"},"modified":"2025-05-29T14:49:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T14:49:15","slug":"trumps-anti-immigrant-cruelty-is-a-national-scourge-and-would-be-made-worse-by-the-maga-budget-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/29\/trumps-anti-immigrant-cruelty-is-a-national-scourge-and-would-be-made-worse-by-the-maga-budget-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Anti-Immigrant Cruelty is a National Scourge \u2013 And Would Be Made Worse by the MAGA Budget Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ben Jealous<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Ben Jealous
\n<\/em><\/strong>Guest Column<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOur neighbors are living in fear. And that\u2019s what the administration wants. They want people to be scared. So, we\u2019re combatting that by bringing the neighborhood together and saying, \u2018you\u2019re not going to frighten us into complicity; you\u2019re not going to frighten us into hiding; we\u2019re one neighborhood, regardless of anyone\u2019s immigration status, and we\u2019re going to stay one neighborhood.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That is how Gabe Gonzalez, an organizer in Chicago\u2019s Rogers Park, described how his neighborhood has responded to Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown \u2013 both during his first administration and throughout the first months of his current one.<\/p>\n

On Martin Luther King Day this year, I gave the keynote at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition\u2019s annual MLK Day breakfast. It was Inauguration Day. The contrast between the hope in that room and the fear outside \u2013 especially among Chicago\u2019s immigrant communities \u2013 was sharp. Reports had already confirmed that Donald Trump\u2019s new administration would make Chicago \u201cground zero\u201d for an intense national sweep by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n

Raids were imminent.<\/p>\n

The mass Day One sweep did not materialize quite\u00a0as advertised by Trump\u2019s border czar Tom Homan<\/a>. But thousands of people were still swept up across the country that first week of the current Trump administration. The fear these actions are still creating is very real. And for good reason.<\/p>\n

Since then, the Trump administration\u2019s deportation campaign has spread. What started in Chicago has become a national scourge. Families are being separated from Denver to Worcester. Parents arrested in front of their children. Kids coming home from school to find their homes ransacked and caregivers gone.<\/p>\n

When armed agents grab someone without a warrant, haul them away from their family, and disappear without explanation \u2013 that is not just cruel. It is lawless. That is why community groups like Gabe Gonzalez\u2019s have set up rapid response teams, legal observers, and know-your-rights trainings. In some cases, their efforts have stopped ICE in its tracks.<\/p>\n

The cruelty of these raids is matched only by their chaos. ICE has arrested green card holders. Detained US citizens. Deported people who know the US as their only real home to countries they barely remember \u2013 or had fled for safety. All of this is meant to send a message: no one is safe.<\/p>\n

The message is loud. And so is the silence that often follows it.<\/p>\n

People are afraid to report wage theft or unsafe working conditions. Parents fear school pickups, or taking their kids to church on Sunday. Victims of domestic violence stay silent, worried that asking for help will get them deported. And even documented immigrants live in fear.<\/p>\n

This is not security. It is terror. And it is why so-called \u201csanctuary cities\u201d like Chicago \u2013 and “sanctuary states\u201d like Illinois have put policies in place making it illegal for local law enforcement to participate in immigration crackdowns. Police already face enough trust barriers with many of the communities they work in. That makes their job harder. Being part of Trump\u2019s anti-immigrant terror campaign would in some cases make it virtually impossible.<\/p>\n

It also could be about to get even more dangerous. The Republican budget bill moving through Congress would supercharge ICE with\u00a0$80 billion in new funding<\/a>. More agents. Fewer guardrails. And a leadership culture that seems more interested in punishment than justice.<\/p>\n

And the strategy is broader than immigration. This is a movement that spreads fear, then exploits that fear to divide us \u2013 Black from Brown, citizen from immigrant, neighbor from neighbor. But as Gonzales and other organizers in Chicago have shown, solidarity still wins.<\/p>\n

This fight is about more than policy. It is about who we are. It is about remembering that every person \u2013 no matter where they were born \u2013 deserves dignity. Deserves due process. Deserves safety.<\/p>\n

The poem engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty reads, \u201cGive me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.\u201d It makes no mention of any race, religion, or country of origin. It speaks to immigration making our country what it is. Making us stronger. Making us what Frederick Douglass called the most “perfect national illustration of the unity and dignity of the human family that the world has ever seen.”<\/p>\n

That is the American Way.<\/p>\n

Back in January, at Rainbow PUSH, I said that when a nation is divided, we stop seeing our own reflections in our neighbors. But our neighbors are still there. They are helping care for our kids, growing our food, rebuilding our towns after floods and fires. They are us.<\/p>\n

So, all of us must respond as if it were happening to us \u2013 because one day, it could be.<\/p>\n

That means fighting the cruelty with clarity. Standing shoulder to shoulder with immigrant communities \u2013 and sometimes, in front of them. Supporting Congress to pass good bills and reject bad ones that undermine due process.<\/p>\n

Organizing non-violently. Voting. Showing up for our neighbors and the rule of law.<\/p>\n

And it means calling this what it is \u2013 immoral, unjust, and defiantly at odds with the real American Way.<\/p>\n

Ben Jealous is the Executive Director of the Sierra Club, former president and CEO of the NAACP and a Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ben Jealous Guest Column \u201cOur neighbors are living in fear. And that\u2019s what the administration wants. They want people to be scared. So, we\u2019re combatting that by bringing the neighborhood together and saying, \u2018you\u2019re not going to frighten us into complicity; you\u2019re not going to frighten us into hiding; we\u2019re one neighborhood, regardless of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,252],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[295],"class_list":["post-16141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-opinion","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16141"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16142,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16141\/revisions\/16142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16141"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=16141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}