Commentary by Jerry Lanson

The Trump Administration wants to arrest a minimum of 3,000 immigrants a day, a senior advisor told Fox News this week. That, according to The New York Times is nearly five times the average of 660 people arrested (and in many cases abducted) in the administration’s first 100 days.

The news, announced by Trump anti-immigration guru Stephen Miller, came as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this week underwent its third major change in top management and the day before the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to evoke the temporary legal status of 530,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

It also came in a week marked by dozens of arrests of working immigrants and parents on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, a boat ride from our Cape Cod home. And it came as ICE agents across the country attempted to gather records of school-age children and began arresting immigrants as they enter or leave immigration hearings, the NYT reported.

When Donald Trump took office, his administration initially said it would focus on arresting and deporting immigrants with criminal records. But the overwhelming share of arrests in my area appear to be of hard-working, peaceful family members picked up at job sites or on their way to and from work. I suspect the same is true elsewhere.

A couple of weeks ago, a young man who co-owned a painting company, who lived in this country for years and who reportedly had no criminal past was abducted in his own apartment in West Falmouth, Massachusetts. The arresting agents did not identify themselves and showed no warrant. Earlier this week, after federal agents fanned out over Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, the owner of a Rhode Island electrical contractor told The Boston Globe that workers, including two of his, had been stopped and intimidated at a random Vineyard roadblock.

“They treat the guys like criminals,” Thiago Alves told the Globe. “It was terrible because my guys got stopped for no reason … They had one car behind my guys and one in front.”

Alves’ men have pending green card applications, but were nonetheless among the lucky ones. They were released in a dragnet that sent some 40 immigrants in handcuffs to the mainland.

Stories like these will only increase as the Trump administration pressures ICE and other federal agents to meet rising arrest quotas. Among those picked up in my area likely will be farm workers, painters, home builders, masons, landscapers, waiters, cooks, housekeepers and elder-care providers. Together, they provide much of the backbone of Cape Cod. They also are our neighbors and their indiscriminate arrests have sent a ripple of fear not only through immigrant communities but also through the community at large.

I’ve heard stories of immigrant families with green cards who do nothing beyond go to work and return home. Some students are staying home from school. Some employees are too afraid to appear at their jobs. The New York Times reported May 8 that undocumented immigrants who’ve been assaulted or have diabetes or high-risk pregnancies are not going to the doctor because they are afraid of being arrested.

Nationwide, a handful of high-profile cases have captured public attention. Best known, perhaps, is the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father mistakenly arrested and deported to El Salvador, where months later he remains in a notorious prison-of-no-return despite the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling that the US should “facilitate” his return. The Trump Administration has ignored this decision.

Equally high-profile are the cases of Mahmoud Khalil, a green-card holder and Columbia University graduate student detained for months in a Louisiana ICE Detention Center because of his role in peaceful pro-Palestinian protests on that campus and of Russian-born, Harvard University researcher Kseniia Petrova, arrested at Logan Airport when she brought undeclared frog embryos from France in her luggage. She, too, remains in Louisiana.

Less high-profile cases surface and disappear or don’t crack the news at all.

Take Fabian Schmitt. On March 7, the 34-year-old German national, who has lived in the United States for nearly 20 years, was detained and then vanished at Logan Airport in Boston after returning from a visit to his parents. A week or two later, news organizations covered his allegations that he had been subjected to severe interrogation, strip-searched and thrown into a cold shower at the airport. But the story of Schmitt then vanished although Schmitt was only released from a Rhode Island prison May 8 after 62 days behind bars. He apparently had pleaded guilty in California a decade ago to a misdemeanor charge of possession of a controlled substance.

In at least two cases in Massachusetts, videos have shown ICE agents smashing the car windows of immigrants to arrest them instead of providing signed warrants. Yet despite this drumbeat of abusive and often masked abductions, elected Democrats, in my state and others, have too often stood by mute or limited themselves to sporadic statements of disapproval.

Let’s hope that is beginning to change.

In Virginia, US Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner released a press release May 23 demanding that ICE agents follow Homeland Security regulations “requiring law enforcement to properly identify themselves and limit use of face-coverings during official operations.”

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey called the Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard raids earlier this week “disturbing,” according to The Boston Globe. She added that, “there have been real questions raised about due process and whether or not ICE and immigration officials are following, complying with due process here and in other states.”

Julian Cyr, a state senator representing part of the Cape and Islands, added in a statement, “This kind of sweeping action has serious consequences. It has left families in fear, disrupted businesses of all kinds and sent a chilling message to many residents who have lived, worked and contributed to island life for years.”

Let us hope we can consider this a good start, albeit a late one. I would urge both chambers of our Massachusetts State Legislature, Gov. Healey, and the state’s entire congressional delegation to condemn ICE’s methods formally and in tandem and to demand adherence to the rule of law going forward.

As my hometown newspaper, The Enterprise of Falmouth, Massachusetts, wrote in an editorial published Friday, May 30: “Something must be done expeditiously to protect the residents of the commonwealth from a summer of ever-present panic and repeated raids, and we are calling on our elected officials to act now and protect their constituents.”

Now and every day going forward.

This column originally appeared in Lanson’s From the Grassroots Substack. Reposted by permission of the author.