Commentary by Jerry Lanson
On the eve of Thanksgiving, the shooting of two members of West Virginia’s National Guard near the White House rattled Americans preparing for this country’s most universal, family-friendly gathering.
Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died of her wounds. Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains in critical condition.
The attack on the Guardsmen, by an Afghan refugee who once worked for our CIA in Afghanistan was tragic, its ostensible motive thus far unclear. Gun violence begets more gun violence. It cuts live short, deepens tensions, fear and division. All Americans must condemn such an incident and honor its victims.
But violence can take many forms.
On Thanksgiving, the day after the Washington, D.C., shooting, President Trump doubled down on what has become his signature cruelty – his unrelenting demonization of asylum seekers and immigrants, documented and undocumented. His drive to deport them, splintering families and sometimes sending loved ones to countries in which they’ve never lived.
Wrote The New York Times, “In a pair of lengthy social media posts just before midnight on Thursday, Mr. Trump said he would ‘permanently pause immigration from all Third World countries’ and denaturalize migrants ‘who undermine domestic tranquility.’” He did not elaborate.
On Friday it became clear that all asylum reviews would be frozen. CNN’s website ran this headline: “An emboldened Trump escalates his anti-immigration crackdown after National Guard shooting.”
In truth, however, Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agents have been escalating their crackdown for months. Here are just three headlines and stories that ran Wednesday morning, hours before the Washington attack.
• ‘I’m Losing Everything’: Babson College Freshman Speaks Out About her Deportation to Honduras Ahead of Thanksgiving – The Boston Globe
Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a freshman studying business at Boston’s Babson College, was about to board a plane to surprise her family in Austin, Texas, for Thanksgiving. Then ICE agents grabbed her at Logan Airport and whisked her away in an unmarked car. Within 48 hours she had been deported to Honduras, a country she had left 12 years ago at Age 7.
The basis of the arrest, the Globe reported, was a “final order of removal” issued when Belloza was 11. Both she and her father told the newspaper they weren’t even aware of it. About 1.3 million such orders existed when Trump began his term, the Globe reports, but few were enforced for those, like Belloza, with no record of any kind. She was a scholarship student who had hoped to open a tailor shop with her father.
• A Mother Was Taken into Custody by ICE. Then the Public Learned of Her Family Tie to the White House – CNN
Bruna Caroline Ferreira came to the United States from Brazil at Age 6. When she was arrested in the Boston suburb of Revere earlier this month, few people beyond her family and neighbors noticed. On Wednesday, however, it was reported that Ferreira is the mother of the 11-year-old nephew of Karoline Leavitt, Donald Trump’s press secretary and biggest cheerleader. The boy, CNNreported, lives with his father, Leavitt’s brother, in New Hampshire, but his mother had maintained regular contact. Ferreira remains in custody in Louisiana awaiting a hearing that could lead to her deportation.
• Green Card Interviews End in Handcuffs for Spouses of US Citizens – The New York Times
Call it carefully planned cruelty. As the subhead of this article reads, “Agents are arresting foreign-born spouses [of citizens] when they report for the final step to obtain permanent residency, and charging them with visa violations that could result in deportation.”
That’s right, the spouses of US citizens are being set up to be separated from their husband or wife when they come to US courthouses to follow legal procedures to finalize their permanent residency. Perhaps we should ask President Trump these questions: How does this brutality make us a better country? A safer country? A richer country? In any way whatsoever?
“I had to take my baby from my crying wife’s arm,” said 33-year-old Stephen Paul of San Diego. “It’s insane to have them rip our family apart. Whoever is directing this has completely lost touch with their mission to the country.” Paul has had to take a leave from his job in the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department to care for the 4-month-old. His wife is British.
“In 25 years of practice, I have never seen anything like this,” Paul’s lawyer, Johanna Keamy, told the NYT.
Immigration lawyers told the newspaper that in San Diego alone, several dozen arrests of spouses have taken place in similar circumstances just since November 12.
These kinds of stories document what might be considered their own acts of terror, particularly in the way they are carried out. They are their own form of violence -- against families, against communities, against love.
Unlike bullets, wrenching physical separation does not kill. But such acts deeply scar, not only those forced to leave but those left behind, not only the bereaved families, but those bound to them in community.
So, it is no surprise that the Trump Administration’s response to the brutal act of a lone gunman has thrown up arbitrary and potentially insurmountable barriers for all asylum seekers and for all immigrants from “third-world countries” (read, anyone with a non-white skin tone). It is no surprise that the administration has further militarized Washington, D.C., itself, calling up an additional 500 National Guard to join the 2,000 already patrolling the streets.
As The Washington Post wrote last Sunday: “Over Thanksgiving weekend, and a day George Washington proclaimed as one to be celebrated with unity and ‘grateful hearts,’ Trump went on a multi-post tirade on social media, saying US citizenship should be stripped from naturalized Americans ‘who undermine domestic tranquility.’ More darkly, he also called for deporting those deemed ‘non-compatible with Western Civilization.’”
In his weekend tirade, Trump also targeted the Biden administration, which had allowed the family of the suspected shooter, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, to enter the United States in 2021 because of his service to our CIA.
What Trump never mentioned, WaPo writes, is that Lakanwal was granted asylum earlier this year – under the Trump Administration. That, of course, would not fit the week’s script of demonization.
Reprinted by permission from Lanson's Substack, From the Grassroots.