As ICE kidnappings continue, and despite signs of dissent, Trump’s grip remains strong

~ Louis Further ~

It’s probably no surprise that there is more to ICE’s kidnapping, detention, and deporting of non-whites (much of it illegal) than simply the identification and demonisation of a scapegoat ‘other’. Sorties of up to 10,000 kidnappings have become more common after the Supreme Court last month struck down Trump’s failed attempt [pdf] to overturn the ‘birthright citizenship’ provision in the constitution in order to continue the MAGA agenda of making the country predominantly white. Section 1 of the US constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment is unambiguous: anyone born in the United States automatically and permanently becomes a US citizen.

This decision was scant cause for undiluted celebration, though: instead of voting nine to none against the move, either three or four judges (depending on how their opinions are read) implicitly believed—despite the clarity of the fourteenth amendment’s wording—that the US is better off without non-white children born ‘on its soil’. The latter emotive term was also used by House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson when effectively announcing that the cult will try and find other ways to suppress the rights (and even deport) non-white children born in the richest country on earth.

In addition to as many as 50 deaths at the hands of ICE since Trump took office last year, there could be as many as 100,000 people (the majority not criminals, not white) held in camps over the summer—in heat and conditions bordering on the indescribable. Many are infants… toddlers, babies. In fact, a new report by the Brookings Institution last month estimates that nearly 150,000 children have been separated from their parents as a result of ICE activity. Over a third of these are under six years old; and a majority are law-abiding. Indeed, many are established residents in the US. If you’re white you needn’t worry, though.

Although the main motive for ICE and the MAGA ‘immigration policy’ is sadistic white supremacy, there is also money to be made.

At the start of June (just as ICE announced that it would stop reporting deaths in custody), the US Senate approved $70 (£52) billion’s worth of funds for the operation which already has an additional budget of $170 (£127) billion. Much of this will go to private initiatives profiteering from the suffering and murder of non-whites.

ICE ‘officers’ (many of whom are gang and/or fascist militia members and known racists) continue to murder law-abiding, legally-resident people: Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, for instance, had lived in Houston, Texas for 35 years. He was originally from Mexico. So when masked but otherwise unmarked ICE agents came across him last week, they shot him dead; and have so far refused to co-operate with local inquiries.

ICE and the deportation of non-whites in order to Make America White Again certainly still holds sway. MAGA far right and fascist propagandists are brought in to provide official and government propaganda for the ‘case’ that the country would be better off without non-white immigrant communities. And of course the Supreme Court does its bit—by, for instance, ending Temporary Protected Status for refugees avoiding death in Haiti and Syria in particular, countries which the US readily designates too dangerous to visit.

There is pushback. Attempts to curb ICE activities in the courts, for instance. And local action against individual camps. But (local) officials are often complicit and support suppression of protest. There is also significant support for the force of supremacism from the opposition Democrat party.

If you want a truly absurd application of the MAGA/Trump cult’s small-minded bigotry, have a quick glance at Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s silly, insult-laden post on X. Duffy worked himself into a froth last week because of the possibility that bicycle lanes, of all things, were a sop to “wokeness”—presumably by protecting people, including probably (wait for it…) “blacks and girls”.

Coup

The election of Trump and of MAGA majorities to the House and Senate in 2024 wasn’t a conventional, armed ‘coup’. The development, though, ought to be considered tantamount to such a violent re-shaping of public life in the US. Indeed, Robert Reich’s recent characterisation of what’s happening as a ‘rolling coup’ is valid and accurate. Trump himself favourably likens the way he exercises power (significantly increased by recent Supreme Court rulings) to some of the most dangerous and dictatorships from the past. Although there are signs of dissent within the Republican party, Trump’s grip remains strong.

There are even self-help/support groups now to assist those who want to ‘leave’ the MAGA cult. Nor do you need to ‘sign up’ to put yourself in a very weak position when it comes to understanding how such things work.

Emblematic were two comments made by members of the MAGA leadership on Independence Day (4 July) this year: Trump bellowed against the “…resurgence of the communist menace in our land. [It’s a…] mortal threat to American liberty…” (whatever a ‘mortal’ threat is) supported by  “…newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success… The Communist Party is made up of illegal immigrants, criminals, and everybody that doesn’t want to work.”

On the same day, the Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, defended an openly white supremacist fascist militia, the Patriot Front, who held a provocative and intimidating march and rally in Washington DC:  “… in America, free speech is allowed…”

As ‘Notes from the US’ has insisted many times previously, little progress towards any kind of ‘reversal’ seems likely as long as the majority of commentators, participants and potential ‘beneficiaries’ fail to grasp what’s really happening.

On the right the ‘analysis’ extends only as far as to repeat endlessly how bad ‘Liberals’ are—merely by… being… ‘Liberals’ (a term few on the left actually use), as exemplified by Joe Biden.

More thoughtful descriptions of the state of the US are almost as incomplete—a common trope being that America is, sadly, ‘divided’. There was much of this over the Independence Day weekend. As if uniting to chase division away would fix things.

But few put the current form (let alone format) of government in the context of a global resurgence of fascism. Maybe it’s too frightening. But it’s a stultifying form of denial (just as is calling mass shootings “unAmerican”!) because it explains next to nothing. And it assumes that there are two sides (in this case fascist and reformist) to every issue – each potentially with a modicum of value.

Environment

Most observers know that Trump/MAGA cult members will not change their minds as climate-liars. Indeed, late last month—as European countries broke heat records, and a fierce El Niño began—the US administration proposed a major removal of regulations of companies seeking to extract oil, gas and coal from public lands in the US. In order to offer financial inducements to energy companies seeking to hasten planetary destruction, the fees which companies are currently required to pay when they wreck by extraction would be significantly reduced; at the same time reporting obligations would be loosened and a legal requirement that companies publish their plans to limit methane emissions would disappear.

As it got hotter, many MAGA cult members re-iterated the usual nonsense that the climate catastrophe is a “hoax” and an attempt by ‘Liberals’ to “deprive us of our freedoms”. Pitiful (and dangerous) to watch. But still believed by large swathes of the US population.

It’s not just humans who are at risk because of the MAGA/Trump cult: tens of millions of animals could now lose their lives and many species become extinct because of a move from late last week to do away with protection from many endangered species.

Images: Radical Graffiti