Thursday, February 16, 2017

Trump's Insidious Immigration Raids Get More Harmful by the Day

A half-dozen Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested an undocumented transgender woman at an El Paso courthouse last week just after she had received a restraining order against the man who had beaten her. Here's whole truth: the woman has a record for crimes like stealing mail and allegedly assault, and she's been deported a half dozen times. That shouldn't matter, but you'll hear about it when this case is discussed, so let's not hide anything.

Here's the wholer truth: Her criminal record was described as "non-violent" by El Paso County Attorney Jo Anne Bernal, and there were no outstanding state court warrants for the woman's arrest.

Here's the wholest truth: The woman had reported three incidents of domestic abuse, each worse than the previous one. "This is a woman who had suffered serious abuse," Bernal told the local press. "This was a victim of horrible domestic violence," said the judge who had just given the woman a protective order against her ex-boyfriend. She suffered one more abuse at his hands because it was her ex, himself in custody for another crime, who likely tipped off ICE about the immigration status of the woman he was beating. She was living at the Center Against Sexual and Family Violence, which provides emergency shelter for individuals and families.

Of the myriad fuckeries that the Trump administration has engaged in, the arrest and deportation of undocumented immigrants with minor or no criminal records or even with DACA protections is the most insidious because it is presented as doing good while, quite plainly and quite intentionally, tearing apart families and sending people with no ties to their country of origin back to often terrible lives. And the case of this woman in El Paso, whose name is listed only as IEG on the order, is particularly insidious because not only does it serve no purpose, but it does real and actual harm.

Because what the fuck does this accomplish? IEG is just one more immigrant to be added to a total that Donald Trump can proclaim as a demonstration of strength as he bumblefucks through a hopefully brief presidency. He'll say they're only deporting the worst criminals or some such bullshit. But it's such a lie. See, as Bernal and Judge Yahara Lisa Gutierrez have said, what this arrest does is drive undocumented domestic violence sufferers away from seeking protections.

In fact, to take this further, any undocumented immigrant who is a victim of violence now can assume that going to the police or to a court would result in deportation, so they must suffer in silence. To go even further, this goes for children of undocumented parents, too. They can assume that if Dad is beating the shit out of them, Mom will be sent back to Mexico if they turn Dad in. To go even further, you can say that it's open season on undocumented immigrants because they likely won't report crimes. And to go just a little further, undocumented immigrants can tell you to go fuck yourself if they see a crime where you're the victim because helping you, even by getting a cop, can result in their arrest and deportation. And fuck testifying in court.

The price of Trump's crackdown on undocumented people in the United States is going to be more crime and, frighteningly, more unreported violence. Trump is saying that he doesn't give a shit about anything other than raising his numbers of deportations, consequences be damned. Fuck women, fuck families, fuck crime, fuck all the blood that will be spilled because of it.

When the next backwards ass, Trump-loving, Christian fuck asks me, "What would Jesus do?" I'll answer, "Jesus would rip Trump's tiny dick off and feed it to pigs." And when that Christian fuck wonders what happened to turning the other cheek, I'd tell him, "At this point, even Jesus would say, 'I've only got so many cheeks, motherfucker, and they're all used up.'"