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Since Donald Trump has become president, hundreds of posts online have described sightings of ICE or Border Patrol in the states. Many, including the President himself, claim that these are all meant to be for the safety of the people. Hundreds of criminals have been deported, yes, but so have hundreds of families with zero criminal record; some of which are legal U.S. citizens. This treatment of people, whether they are citizens of the U.S. or not, is cruel.
On January 24th of this year, a Puerto Rican mother and her three year old son were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the middle of a store in Milwaukee. If a person is born in Puerto Rico, they gain the same citizenship as someone born in any of the other 50 states, however, the officers didn’t listen to the woman or her son. The two have recently been sent to an unidentified detention center even though they’re both legal citizens, and there’s no telling how long it will be before the two can leave.
January 27th, Colombia sent a plane of their own to collect 200 Colombian migrants after threats from President Trump to punish Colombia with tariffs for failure to collect the immigrants. Previously, U.S. military aircrafts had been sent to bring the immigrants back to Colombia, however, Colombian President Gustavo denied their landing. After further research was performed, not a single one of the 200 immigrants had any form of criminal record in either country, though the President made it seem as if they were. Gustavo had been used to more dignified deportation flights from the United States, not ones in which his citizens were treated as if they were criminals when they had no records. The President made claims that the people he was going to be deporting first were “dangerous murderers”; and if that’s true, why is it that not a single person of these 200 was a criminal? There’s no protection happening here, just simply using that as an excuse in order to eject more people from the “land of the free”.
Ever since the ICE raids began, people have been reporting hearing about ice cream trucks. It’s the middle of winter, so of course many were skeptical. There is video footage of ICE trucks playing the typical “ice cream truck” jingle, as if attempting to lure children of immigrants out into the streets in order to take families. If mass deportations are meant to keep criminals out of the country as many of the president’s supporters believe, children shouldn’t be the ones being targeted. It’s generally frowned upon to target young kids, though it isn’t against the Geneva convention it is still generally frowned upon.
Of course, deportations aren’t unique to Donald Trump’s presidency, both Biden and Barack Obama have had over 1 million deportations during their terms as President. The amount of migrants that Trump plans to deport though is significantly higher, looking to deport 11 million migrants.
Many support the idea of these deportations for a number of reasons, however, there’s a large population of people who are panicking over these raids. If Puerto Rican citizens have been detained due to these raids, that implies that other United States citizens could be detained as well. Hundreds- or maybe thousands- of arrests are being made every day, whether it be citizens or illegal immigrants. Regardless of if they are families, elderly, young, criminals or not: they’re human, and they’re being treated as lesser.
