Militarizing deportations

Make no mistake, events in Los Angeles with 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 U.S. Marines (as of this writing) facing off against those demonstrating against the arrest and detention of undocumented immigrants will occur in Massachusetts. And as we have seen, on Martha’s Vineyard. President Trump nationalized the California Guard, leading Gov. Gavin Newsom to sue the president, calling his actions unlawful and unnecessary. The governor argued that the presence of military personnel only provoked tension, violence, and unrest.

President Trump said he supports Gov. Newsom’s arrest.

As a presidential candidate, Trump promised to remove those who were convicted of crimes. Just 662,566 noncitizens have criminal histories, a fraction of those in the U.S. without documents. Border czar Tom Homan did not contradict Trump, but expanded the reach of whom the government was going to remove.

The National Guard troops and U.S. Marines are supposed to protect federal buildings in Los Angeles. To arrest someone would flagrantly violate federal law, namely the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the military from exercising law enforcement powers.

Congress could and should have avoided this ghastliness last year. It had a major opportunity to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Candidate Trump killed it. He wanted to run on the issue. Led by conservative Sen. James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, the bipartisan bill would have achieved “several conservative goals, like building more border wall, hiring more Border Patrol agents, expanding detention capacity, and speeding deportations.” Lankford said his Republican colleagues and candidate Trump used the bill “as a political football.” 

According to the Associated Press, “Lankford’s frustration was palpable as he responded” [to the criticism from Republicans], arguing that he was “surprised at the number of Republican senators that have come back to me since that bill and have apologized, and said, ‘We should have passed that.’” But Republicans were afraid that Trump would support a primary challenger to anyone who voted for it.

As a candidate and now as president of the U.S., Trump said he wants to remove 15 to 20 million unauthorized immigrant and asylum seekers. But the best estimate, according to Penn State’s Jennifer Van Hook, who studies immigration statistics, is that some 13.7 million undocumented immigrants live in the U.S. 

“Most immigrants,” she writes, “are in the U.S. legally. About 49 percent have become U.S. citizens by a process known as naturalization. Another 19 percent hold lawful permanent resident status, and are eligible to become U.S. citizens through naturalization. Still another 5 percent are in the country on temporary visas, like those for international students, diplomats and their families, and seasonal or temporary workers.”

When Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents came to the Island in May, their goal was not to detain immigrants with criminal backgrounds. It was to pick up everyone on the Vineyard without authorization, and even some with documents. They may have had names and addresses, but they seemed more interested in what a person looked like rather than undertaking an investigation.

As The MV Times recently reported, a Brazilian immigrant, Luciano Dacol, “was stopped along the Edgartown–Vineyard Haven Road by federal agents wearing tactical vests; there was no apparent reason for him being pulled over. He showed his work permit and his Social Security number to the officers.” He was detained “in a broad and indiscriminate sweep of the Island’s Brazilian community, and a confusing and tangled process.”

Like most undocumented immigrants, many of our Brazilian friends and neighbors have resided on the Island for many years. They have families, they have jobs that are crucial to the Island economy, and they pay taxes. As Van Hook points out, “just under half of foreign-born individuals have lived in the country for two decades or more, and more than two-thirds have lived in the country for at least 10 years. Only 20 percent arrived within the past five years.”

But now, we are seeing the militarization of detentions and deportations. Former U.S. Secretary of Labor and now Professor Emeritus of the University of California Robert Reich argues that “we are witnessing the first stages of a Trump police state.”

In fact, America is not yet a police state. But as demonstrations around the country increase, including on the Vineyard, it is only a matter of time until American troops accidentally or purposely shoot and kill their fellow Americans. This is hardly a model of a constitutional democracy.

Jack Fruchtman, who lives in Aquinnah, taught constitutional law and politics for more than 40 years.