When You Accidentally Admit Your ICE Raids Are Bullshit

Let's talk about immigration, shall we? 

Time and time again, Republicans like to point to the fact that we have roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country, making up roughly 3% of the population. While that number is generally accepted as a ballpark figure, it should come as no surprise that Donald Trump has exaggerated that number, falsely claiming that his administration could deport "between 15 and 20 million" undocumented immigrants during his term. Like any aspiring dictator, Trump needs a scapegoat to consolidate his power, and by using the Stalin/Mussolini/Hitler playbook, he is willfully targeting immigrants to do so. This is a community without citizenship status, which means it cannot vote and therefore has no political power. It is the governing of Democratic-led states that grants undocumented citizens certain rights, such as the ability to secure a state driver's license or receive in-state college tuition. Not being a reliable voting bloc, undocumented immigrant issues such as worker exploitation are largely left by the wayside. It's only during presidential election years when the border issue comes up that either party actually discusses the issue, and even then, it's filled with lies and misinformation from the right. The right needs its voters scared, and nothing scares them more than Central and South American gangbangers trafficking women, fentanyl, and COVID across the border.  

This is nothing new. Immigrants throughout our history have been vilified. Other than slavery, the treatment of immigrants in the United States represents the ugliest chapter in our nation's history. From the Chinese Exclusion Act to No Irish Need Apply to rejecting Jewish refugees in 1939, America has long ignored Emma Lazarus' words at the base of the Statue of Liberty. But despite all this, the great myth of America has remained a beacon of hope for so many oppressed people throughout the globe. Even with more and more restrictive immigration policies under Republican administrations, immigrants and refugees continue coming here to make a better life for themselves and their children. They apply for certain VISAs which grant them legal access to be here. They apply for asylum, a legal process that provides them the opportunity to state how and why they should be allowed to remain here. They are even provided government-backed employment opportunities to fill the jobs that American workers are simply unable to do, such as the Bracero Program, which brought 3 million Mexican workers to the United States in the two decades after World War II. By the mid-1980s, Republican savior Ronald Reagan went so far as to provide amnesty for 2.7 million undocumented workers, knowing full well that the United States couldn't afford to lose them or their labor.

That last one is the kicker. Because, for as much as Republicans like to scream and shout about immigrants taking "our" jobs, the fact is that immigrant workers are filling jobs that American workers are unwilling to do. Working in the fields is no joke in this country. It requires long, hot 14-hour days of backbreaking labor done by migrants who often do seasonal work in various parts of the country. Chances are high that you will be eating at least part of your supper this evening, thanks to the efforts of multiple undocumented immigrants in helping to get that food to your table. Back in 2010, the United Farm Workers went so far as to issue a challenge to the American people through their "Take Our Jobs" campaign that encouraged anyone to apply for a seasonal field job. Despite there being a new wave of anti-immigrant sentiment led largely by the emerging Tea Party, only 16 individuals took the UFW up on their offer, including Stephen Colbert, who later testified to Congress about his experience. For as much as the right likes to demonize immigrant workers, the fact is that they do the work that nobody else can. 

We know this. And as Donald Trump's recent Truth Social post shows, so does he. 

Or at least, he's been told by his rich friends about it, and they just happened to be the last ones in the room. Because that's how Trump and those in his orbit operate. He has no values or morals. It's simply who he can make a transaction with at the moment that will personally benefit him. We don't know what those offered Trump in return, but we do know that something alerted him that the removal of undocumented labor from hotels and leisure businesses would be detrimental to those in charge. Let us not forget that Trump himself has a history of hiring undocumented immigrants from his earliest projects, using Polish workers in the 1980s, to using undocumented housekeepers at Mar-a-Lago, to hiring foreign workers at his Bedminster property as late as April of this year. Throughout his entire 50-year career, Donald Trump has willingly employed undocumented workers for the same reason that they are employed throughout the country: they are a cheap source of labor that do the work that Americans refuse to do. By pausing the raids as he has done, he is willingly admitting that these workers are critical to the success of farms, hotels, and restaurants across the country. 

Trump's ICE raids serve a political, rather than a practical purpose. His administration is intentionally targeting blue states and progressive cities as a way to send fear to these immigrant communities. Notice there hasn't been a single raid at a factory farm. Or a large hotel chain. Or national fast food restaurants that knowingly employ undocumented workers on their kitchen staff. Mar-a-Lago? Bedminster? Please. None of these will be targeted despite there being documentation of the hiring of undocumented workers. Trump can't raid these businesses because, as he posted, they would fall apart without those very same workers that Trump claims are a threat to us all. If he were serious about immigration reform, he would work with Speaker Mike Johnson to pass an immigration bill that has enforceable E-Verify measures that would ensure that immigrant workers were citizens before being hired. Trump and Johnson's refusal to address this head-on tells you everything you need to know about them needing to keep undocumented immigration a problem rather than a solution. 

Republicans are non-serious people. But they are power-hungry. And one of the only things that keeps them in power is their constant scapegoating of black and brown people. What we're seeing in real-time is their delicate balancing act of trying to prove themselves to be the strongmen while simultaneously keeping businesses afloat that rely on undocumented labor. The hypocrisy is stunning, but it is to be expected. Republicans need "bad" immigrants, not ones working tirelessly in the fields, hotels, or restaurants. They need Kilmar Garcia to be a human trafficker. They need Senator Alex Padilla to have been the one to instigate the confrontation with Kristi Noem. They need Los Angeles to be set on fire by Mexican flag-waving immigrants. Because without these "violent" immigrants, we're left simply with decent, hard-working men and women who are stuck in a broken immigrant system.

A system that Republicans refuse to fix.