Tag: Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Just another week in America

I haven’t blogged since last Monday because my computer monitor died on Tuesday. I couldn’t get a new one installed until over the weekend. As a blogger and writer, I was like a fish out of water while I didn’t have a computer. I’m “old school.” There’s only so much I can do on my cell phone and tablet. The up-side of that situation was that I used my newfound free time to do some decluttering.

I was sorry not to get to blog last week about one of the stories in my new book, Traveling Through History: A Collection of Historical Short Stories. I will blog about another story in a day or two.

The highlight last week was the Peace Walk by monks from Texas. I did not get to see them, but I’ve been following their 2,300-mile journey to Washington, DC on social media and the news. They spent one night a few miles from here. They and their dog, Aloka, walk quietly and in peace. That’s something in short supply in the world these days. Reports say that Aloka is recovering nicely from having leg surgery in South Carolina. We’ve all fallen in love with Aloka – the street dog from India. What an inspiration Aloka and the monks are! They’re expected to arrive in Greensboro, North Carolina today.

What to blog about today?

I could take today’s blog post in one of many directions, considering all that Donald Trump has done and said in the last week. Where would I start? I’m running out of words to write about the abuses committed by the Trump Administration. My blog posts risk sounding like a broken record. (If you’re too young to know what that means, Google it.)

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota skyline. (Photo by Tom Conway on Unsplash)

If you are reading this in Minnesota, please know that you are in my prayers. I am with you in spirit. The nation is behind you. The photos and news reports coming out of Minneapolis are appalling.

If Minneapolis is the testing ground for the police state Trump has planned for us, I guess I need to update my passport application. I hoped I wouldn’t need to always have my birth certificate or passport with me, in case I had to prove my citizenship, but it looks like that was wishful thinking.

Trump said he was sending immigration agents and border patrol agents to hunt down and deport “the worst of the worst,” but 73% of the people held in his detention centers have no criminal record.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents keep shooting American citizens. Of the four shootings that occurred in Minneapolis in the first couple of weeks of this year, two of them were committed by ICE agents! And now Trump’s Department of “Justice” has been ordered to investigate the mayor of Minneapolis and the Governor of Minnesota. (It is basically Trump’s Department of Justice and not the U.S. Department of Justice, since he treats it like his personal legal team.)

News reports indicate that Renee Good and her wife will be investigated, but not the ICE agent who shot Ms. Good in the face while she was driving. I have not heard any law enforcement officer say it is recommended that they shoot the driver of a moving vehicle. It’s a miracle no one else died in that incident as Ms. Good’s vehicle continued down the street until it plowed into a parked car and utility pole.

And why was she denied medical attention for at least ten minutes even after a nearby physician offered to lend her aid but was not allowed?

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said that her ICE agents have complete legal immunity.

Only Trump supporters will put any trust in the FBI’s “investigation” of the incident.

ICE agents keep accosting Native Americans on the streets because of the color of their skin. Too bad they weren’t taught in school that North America was originally populated by non-Europeans. The indigenous peoples have more right to be here than the rest of us. There have been reports of ICE agents not recognizing citizenship papers from Indian tribes as legal proof of American citizenship.

Trump has two battalions of U.S. Army paratroopers on standby and is threatening to send them to Minneapolis. He already has 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents there creating intimidation and chaos. U.S. military personnel are never supposed to be turned on the American people. Will that be a bridge too far if Trump crosses it?

There have been so many actions and words that I thought would end his political career, but he always comes out unscathed. On Tuesday, he told the people of Minnesota that “the day of reckoning and retribution is coming.” How Presidential!

Of course, he also told the protesters in Iran that “help is on the way.” Funny how he wants to punish Iran for killing protesters, but his own agents are killing protesters in the U.S.

Greenland

A scene in Greenland (Photo by Visit Greenland on Unsplash)

If you are reading this in Greenland, Denmark, The Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, France, or Germany… all I can say is I’m sorry, and please don’t give up on the people of the United States of America. The vast majority of Americans don’t want to steal or purchase Greenland. We absolutely don’t want our country to take it by military force! We don’t want to see NATO destroyed! We’re sick and tired of all the tariffs. They aren’t making anyone rich but Trump.

Venezuela

Flag of Venezuela (Photo credit: Aboodi Vesakaran on Unsplash)

We didn’t want Venezuela, but we are enjoying the flood of cartoons springing up all over social media about Trump’s second-hand Nobel Peace Prize.

I don’t think anyone expected “America First” to entail any of this when Trump was campaigning.

What Trump does next is anyone’s guess. A year ago, he talked like an isolationist, but now he seems to want to rule the world.

Since the majority of Congress members don’t have the guts to remove him from office, the ballot box in November looks like our only option… unless he declares a national emergency and cancels the mid-term elections. He admitted last week that he is afraid Democrats will hold the majority of Senate and House seats after the election and he expects to be impeached. We all know he won’t allow that to happen. Chances are, with that fear eating at him, he would wreak as much havoc as possible before November.

My plans for 2026

I shall keep blogging – not always about politics, but I will not be silenced about the things Trump does. To remain quiet when I have this platform is to be complicit.

I shall keep writing my U.S. Senators and U.S. Representative, even though they are Republicans and two of the three have never said one critical word about Trump. The other one speaks out occasionally, but only because he is not running for reelection.

I shall keep writing my novel.

Most of us will just keep doing the best we can.

Janet

The government should be afraid of its citizens, not the other way around.

MASA? The Reimaging of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

“Make America Safe Again” appears to be the new slogan of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), but I’ve never felt less safe in my life.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) thugs with masked faces in unmarked vehicles are turned loose to supposedly apprehend “the worst of the worst” among us. The Trump Administration’s catch phrase, “the worst of the worst” can be translated to “immigrant,” except for those who have married into Trump’s family.

In his ramblings at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts yesterday he mentioned not letting people into the country if you don’t like what they look like. That pretty much sums up the outlook of his Presidency. He doesn’t want them counted in the U.S. Census either.

I have not seen ICE thugs in person. I live in a semi-rural area. But I’ve seen enough photographs and news reports. All this heightened militarization of the federal government only scares me, even though I’m white and was born in the United States. What’s to say ICE nabs me by mistake?

I keep procrastinating getting a new passport to prove I’m a citizen. It seems like I shouldn’t have to pay $195 just to have a document to prove I’m a citizen. I could just carry a copy of my birth certificate everywhere I go, just in case; however, that merely proves I was born here, and that’s not going to be sufficient after the U.S. Supreme Court lets Trump do away with the 14th Amendment.

What’s to say they nab me because I write uncomplimentary things about Trump? Come to think of it, my passport won’t do me any good if that happens. Maybe I don’t need a passport after all.

The Department of Homeland Security website

Something told me to visit the website for DHS (https://www.dhs.gov/) yesterday afternoon, but I wish I hadn’t. Now I can’t un-see it.

At the top of the home page is a stern-looking image of “Uncle Sam” pointing his finger at the person viewing the computer screen. The text: “AMERICA NEED YOU! America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out. JOIN ICE.” The words, “JOIN ICE” are in a clickable button for your convenience.

I’ve seen photographs of the “Uncle Sam Needs You!” posters that were used in the 1940s, but that was during World War II. “Uncle Sam” needed every American to sacrifice and serve in some way to defeat Nazi Germany and Japan.

Uncle Sam "I want you U.S. Army" poster
Photo from the Library of Congress

For a government agency to use that image today to target immigrants minimizes the importance of the country’s need in the 1940s. To conflate the immigration problems of 2025 with a World War is a slap in the face to my parents’ generation who survived The Great Depression and World War II.

But the DHS website only got worse.

Under the red, white, and blue banner of Uncle Sam pleading for your help is a photograph of Secretary Kristi Noem all decked out like a cowboy atop a horse. She is surrounded by more cowboys on horses like a posse tracking down the bad guys in a B-grade movie set in the 1800s out in the mythical “wild West.

The photo brings back memories of the “Gunsmoke” TV series from the 1950s. Not what I want to see in the United States in the 21st century – not even in a movie or TV program – much less in real life.

I suppose it is all part of the Trump Administration and MAGA’s fascination with guns.

Too many meaningless slogans

Under that bizarre photograph it says, “Making America Safe Again.” Just what we needed: one more “Make America _____ Again!” This has turned into a multiple-choice exercise in which you can fill in just about any adjective that comes to mind.

I would say this “Make America _____ Again” is a broken record, but there’s a whole generation of people out there who wouldn’t have a clue what that means.

I consider it a privilege of birth that I was born and have lived my entire life in the United States of America. I didn’t do anything to deserve that, and I have considered it a blessing.

But I have apparently been living under the misconception that America was a great country. Now, at the ripe old age of 72, I find out it was all a hoax!

This land of opportunity and freedom I have happily lived in all these years which afforded me a free public education and an affordable public university education and gave me the opportunity to earn a living as I chose was all smoke and mirrors! What a shock!

My entire life has apparently been a joke. I only thought I was happy. I only thought I was free. Little did I know all this time I’ve been living in a hell hole, according to President Trump.

Make America Great Again. Make America Healthy Again. Make America Safe Again. For about 24 hours back on July 20, we even had Make Indians Great Again because Trump wanted the Cleveland Guardians baseball team to revert to being the Cleveland Indians.

Frankly, I’m sick of every bit of this. All of these bombastic slogans being made by a failed but somehow famous convicted felon businessman who is running roughshod over the United States of America ring hollow.

What does “great” mean?

Trump’s idea of “great” is equivalent to money, lies, a façade. It’s all a house of cards and it will collapse.

Money does not equate with greatness, to my way of thinking. Greatness is found in how you treat other human beings – how you treat all human beings.

Greatness is not found in calling people stupid, idiots, lunatics, scum, criminals, etc.

Building yourself up by making all manner of false claims about your intellect and accomplishments is not greatness; it’s a sign of weakness and insecurity.

Here we are.

Janet