Bringing in the National Guard: Trump’s war on migrants (Part II)

Since the first part of this article appeared in May, MAGA’s war on migrants has become yet more brutal, while its military component has grown significantly. The National Guard and Marines Trump sent to Los Angeles in June, ostensibly to quell protesters’ “rioting” that never materialized, remained deployed there for more than a month.

But Trump was just testing the waters in LA. Since he got away with sending federal troops there, his next move has been to deploy the National Guard to Washington, DC—while threatening to do the same in other localities, like New York, Chicago, Baltimore and Oakland, all of them with Black Democratic mayors.

Already, heavily armed and masked federal goons dressed in military fatigues roam immigrant neighborhoods in unmarked vehicles across the country, ready to descend on unsuspecting parents dropping their kids off at school, workers on their way to at their jobs, attending an immigration hearing—seemingly anytime at any place. Some have been spotted in Penske rental trucks at a Home Depot; while at least one has been photographed disguised as a construction worker.

The policy adviser most responsible for Trump’s immigration policy is Stephen Miller, a known white nationalist who supports the “great replacement theory” that claims nonwhite people are trying to erase white people from the world. During his days at Duke University, he was friends with Richard Spencer, the notorious white nationalist who organized the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, NC. It should also be remembered that Trump at the time called the fascists who gathered in Charlottesville “some very fine people.”

In its obsession with mass deportations, the Trump administration is utilizing personnel from the FBI, U.S. Marshals, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. So those who witness anonymous federal agents beating and hoisting migrants into unmarked vehicles are not only prevented from identifying the name or badge number of the kidnappers, but don’t even know which agency to contact to try and locate where those captured have been taken.

“ICE seems to be everywhere”

In the months immediately following Trump’s second inauguration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) more than doubled its daily arrest rate, with an average of 666 immigration arrests per day, compared to less than 300 per day in 2024. But in May, Miller, demanded that ICE make 3,000 arrests a day, up from 650. The results were immediate. In Los Angeles alone, between June 6 and June 22, immigration agents arrested more than 1,600 people. June’s total for Homeland Security immigration arrests in the Los Angeles area reached nearly 3,000, compared to 850 in May.

As the Associated Press reported, “Suddenly, ICE seemed to be everywhere. ‘We saw ICE agents on farms, pointing assault rifles at cows, and removing half the workforce,'” said Rebecca Shi, CEO of the American Business Immigration Coalition that represents 1,700 employers and supports increased legal immigration. This is just a glimpse at what the future might hold for migrants if Trump and the band of reactionary sycophants he’s empowered at the top of his administration succeed in their aims.

It is not just the number of immigration detentions and deportations that is alarming migrant communities across the country; it is also the gestapo tactics used by the badge-less thugs who refuse to identify themselves as they beat and kidnap their targets.

And there is something sadistic about MAGA politicians’ embrace of Trump’s violent arrest methods. Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, for example, recently told Fox News,

[There’s a] new sheriff in town. I have to tell you, one of my favorite things to watch on YouTube these days are the court hearings where illegals are in court and [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] shows up to drag them out of court and deport them. I can think of nothing more American today than keeping our streets safer by getting those violent criminals out of the United States of America.

When asked during a congressional hearing in May to define “habeas corpus,” Noem—who routinely refers to undocumented immigrants as “dirtbags”—answered that the term refers to “a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country and suspend their rights.” Habeas corpus is, of course, the precise opposite of Noem’s definition: it is the constitutional right of any person accused of a crime to challenge the legality of their detention. Therefore, it is a safeguard against unlawful detention, ensuring that individuals are not convicted without due process.

Miller, meanwhile, has declared his intention to suspend habeas corpus by claiming that the U.S. is witnessing an “invasion” by migrants. “I would say that’s an option we’re actively looking at,” Miller said. “Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.”

ICE tactics prioritize meeting Miller’s demand for 3,000 daily arrests

In a break with the past, groups of ICE thugs now lie in wait outside immigration courtrooms, presumably because they can nab the largest number of migrants with the least amount of effort. As Eileen Markey described in The Nation,

The overwhelming majority of immigrants whose cases are winding through the immigration court system show up for their hearings, believing that by adhering to the system’s labyrinthine requirements they’ll be rewarded with clearance to stay in the country. Or at least the chance to fight another day. But under President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation regime, abiding by the immigration system’s rules has become increasingly dangerous. Those who show up in court now routinely face arrest. But failure to appear for a hearing generally triggers a deportation order.

The vast majority of migrants do not have lawyers to represent them at their immigration hearings. No one is certain how many migrants are being kidnapped from federal buildings and hauled off to be detained and deported because the Department of Homeland Security keeps this information secret. But it is certainly the case that even when judges grant future court dates, many migrants are nevertheless arrested immediately upon exiting the courtroom.

Moreover, ICE has designated some jails where immigrants languish for days or more than a week as “holding” rather than “detention” centers—claiming that, as in the case of 26 Federal Plaza in New York City, they are “housing [immigrants] until they can be detained.” This new designation takes away the right of elected Congress members from inspecting the facilities.

[It should also be noted, however, that on May 9, when four elected officials attempted to enter a New Jersey detention facility for inspection, ICE agents tried to physically prevent them from entering. Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, was arrested along with Rep. LaMonica McIver—both of them Black. While charges against Baraka were dropped, McIver was charged with “forcibly impeding and interfering with federal law enforcement officers.” An official statement from the Department of Homeland Security claimed the officials were “protesters” who “stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility.”]

And these so-called holding facilities do not have provisions for longer term detentions. 26 Federal Plaza, for example—which is intended for hours, not days, of detention—does not have a provision for meals, beds or bathing.

Racial profiling as policy

Not surprisingly, the government’s zeal in rounding up potentially undocumented immigrants has led to the expansive use of racial profiling, leading to the arrests of U.S. citizens based only on the color of their skin. No federal agency makes the number of such arrests public, but there is an abundance of anecdotal evidence.

A viral video made by Florida teenager Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio (available here) of his own arrest has demonstrated to millions of viewers the inhumane border tactics used by patrol agents. In early May, Laynez-Ambrosio was driving to his landscaping job in North Palm Beach with his mother and two male friends when they were pulled over. Laynez-Ambrosio is a U.S. citizen but was arrested anyway.

As the Guardian described,

Video footage of the incident captured by Laynez-Ambrosio, an 18-year-old US citizen, appears to show a group of officers in tactical gear working together to violently detain the three men*, two of whom are undocumented. They appear to use a stun gun on one man, put another in a chokehold and can be heard telling Laynez-Ambrosio: “You’ve got no rights here. You’re a migo, brother.” Afterward, agents can be heard bragging and making light of the arrests, calling the stun gun use “funny” and quipping: “You can smell that … $30,000 bonus.”

Federal detention centers with names like “Alligator Alcatraz” (in Florida) and “Speedway Slammer” (in Indiana) demonstrate how officials delight in mocking the violence awaiting migrant detainees on their premises. A new report by the office of Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, found 510 credible reports of human rights abuses since Trump’s inauguration in January.

As the Guardian reported, “The alleged abuses uncovered include deaths in custody, physical and sexual abuse of detainees, mistreatment of pregnant women and children, inadequate medical care, overcrowding and unsanitary living conditions, inadequate food and water, exposure to extreme temperatures, denial of access to attorneys, and child separation.”

“Criminals” whose only crime is existing

The Trump administration has portrayed immigrants as invading “enemies” and violent criminals to justify rounding up and deporting them. The truth is that according even to ICE’s own statistics as of late June 71.7 percent of immigrant detainees trapped in ICE facilities across the country had no criminal convictions. Eighty-four percent of immigrants detained in ICE prisons and concentration camps have been designated as having no threat level, e.g., are deemed to have no criminal record, and many others rounded up had records for misdemeanors like traffic violations or simply for having previously been deported. The reality behind the rhetoric is that the Trump administration simply wants to deport as many immigrants as it possibly can, even if it means returning them to torture, violence, and death.

How else to understand the contradictory positions taken by the Trump administration when in late June the government lifted protected status for Haitians fleeing terror and violence in their home country? As the Miami Herald noted, “A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said on Friday that ‘the environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home’—even as the State Department warns Americans to not travel there at all because of kidnapping, civil unrest, limited healthcare, and extreme gang violence. This week, the agency urged Americans to ‘depart as soon as possible.’”

The government’s hateful rhetoric has been used to justify the deportation of immigrants not only to their country of origin, but to third countries to which they have no connection. In a policy that mirrors the second Bush presidency—when “enemy combatants” in the so-called “war on terror” were systematically kidnapped and rendered to notorious “black sites” in various countries where they were imprisoned and tortured—some deportees are being shipped to third countries run by dictatorships that are notorious for their brutality, and some that are riven by violent conflicts.

The Trump regime has struck deals with at least 19 countries, including El Salvador, Sudan, Libya, and Rwanda and is seeking deals with dozens more, to take in deportees from the United States—a plan that the U.S. Supreme Court also approved in late June in its shadow docket. This deliberately cruel and inhumane policy was defended by Miller in a chillingly telling way: “ICE is sending planes all over the world all the time. Anyone who came here illegally, we’re finding them and we’re getting them out.” The government recently deported 8 men to South Sudan (the men were told that they were being sent to Louisiana) and five men to Eswatani, a tiny landlocked absolute monarchy in Southern Africa, a state where, according to the state department’s own report, there are “arbitrary or unlawful killings, including extrajudicial killings; torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government.”

The administration’s intent to deport any immigrant non-citizen, regardless of current legal status or criminal record, to any country they liked—preferably ones where they will face imprisonment, torture, or death—was made clear back in March. At that time, the Trump administration invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to justify the deportation of 250 Venezuelan and El Salvadoran men to the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador after Trump struck a $6 million deal with El Salvador’s brutal dictator Nayib Bukele, who has placed El Salvador under martial law since 2022. Trump claimed that the deportees were members of a violent Venezuelan gang, Tren De Aragua and the Salvadoran gang MS-13—a claim that was quickly debunked.

The March 15 kidnapping and deportation to El Salvador of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia was revealing. The administration itself claimed that he had been deported by mistake. Amid a public outcry, even the Supreme Court ordered him returned. Trump’s response was to double down, even publishing doctored photos to “prove” Garcia was a member of MS-13 and promising never to allow him back in the US—even though Garcia had fled El Salvador as a teenager to escape gang violence. Then in an about-face, Garcia was abruptly returned to the US in June—to face charges of engaging in immigrant smuggling. The high-profile protests and demands for his release no doubt helped to facilitate his return; but the Trump administration’s efforts to “redo” his deportation based on what is likely a spurious legal case shows that far more struggle is necessary as ICE supercharges its deportation campaign.

Ending birthright citizenship and pushing “denaturalization”

On the first day of his second term, Trump trumpeted his anti-immigrant agenda by issuing an executive order ending birthright citizenship—the law, enshrined in the 14^th amendment of the Constitution, that automatically grants citizenship to anyone born on US soil. The amendment was passed after the defeat of slavery to ensure that former slaves could be citizens of the United States. In a landmark 1898 case, the supreme court ruled that a man born in the United States, whose Chinese parents were not US citizens, was a citizen by right of birth.

After a flurry of lawsuits from states and immigrant advocacy groups, the order has so far been blocked by district federal judges. But last month the Supreme Court’s conservative majority handed Trump a preliminary victory for his plan to end birthright citizenship by ruling that lower courts cannot impose nationwide injunctions for individual plaintiffs—though the court did not rule on the constitutionality of Trump’s executive order, and did not rule out other means, such as class action lawsuits, to block the order. The decision opened the door to the possibility of Trump’s order being enforced in some states but not in others.

Several of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Trump’s favor—for example the rulings allowing Trump to proceed with mass firings of federal workers, to discharge transgender soldiers, end temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants, and deport immigrants to third countries—have been issued quickly as short, unsigned rulings without any explanation for the court’s reasoning in what has been referred to as the “emergency” or “shadow docket.”

For now, the executive order on Birthright citizenship remains blocked, by a series of federal judges. In addition to the multiple challenges to Trump’s order in district and appellate courts, there are more than two dozen pending lawsuits by states and cities across the country. The upshot is that the case is going to eventually find its way back up to the Supreme Court, where the Trump administration will look to the conservative majority to strike down, or at least modify, the 14^th amendment.

Trump’s overreach is backfiring

The Trump administration’s overreach, however, has shown signs of backfiring. As Politico reported, “But as Trump’s crackdown has intensified, Americans’ negative views on immigration have reversed.” A Gallup poll released last month showed,

Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.

These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups.

With illegal border crossings down sharply this year, fewer Americans than in June 2024 back hard-line border enforcement measures, while more favor offering pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the U.S.

The same poll finds many more Americans disapproving than approving of President Donald Trump’s handling of immigration.

Moreover, prosecutors in Los Angeles have failed miserably at obtaining Grand Jury indictments on the vast majority of felony charges against alleged “assaults” and “obstruction” by anti-ICE demonstrators there in June. The reason is simple: the arrests and charges are largely based on lies.

As The Real News Network reported,

The Los Angeles Times reports that Bill Essayli, who was appointed by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi earlier this year to serve as the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, recently became “irate” and could be heard “screaming” at prosecutors in the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles when a grand jury declined to indict an anti-ICE protester who had been targeted for potential felony charges.

And according to the LA Times’ reporting, this failure to secure an indictment against demonstrators was far from a one-off.

“Although his office filed felony cases against at least 38 people for alleged misconduct that either took place during last month’s protests or near the sites of immigration raids, many have been dismissed or reduced to misdemeanor charges,” the paper writes. “In total, he has secured only seven indictments, which usually need to be obtained no later than 21 days after the filing of a criminal complaint.”

It is incredibly rare for prosecutors to fail to secure indictments from grand juries, which only require a determination that there is “probable cause” to believe a suspect committed a crime and which do not hear arguments from opposing counsels during proceedings.

… Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) similarly bashed prosecutors for using easily discredited statements from ICE officers to secure indictments.

“I’m a former prosecutor and can confirm that any prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich,” he wrote. “Except the top prosecutor in L.A. Why? Because this article points out ICE AGENTS ARE MAKING SHIT UP. You want your agents respected? Tell them to stop lying.”

Trump accelerates military repression, incrementally

But the Trump administration, impervious to growing public disapproval, has only raised the stakes further.

Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” that sailed through congress in early July promises to massively expand the immigration enforcement machinery. The National Immigration Justice Center called the bill a “slush fund” for immigration enforcement agencies because it “shells out over $170 billion to balloon the immigration enforcement industrial complex led by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agencies—to the benefit of private prison executives and government contractors. The impact on communities across the country will be dire and will signal historic rollbacks of immigrants’ rights and access to justice.”

ICE is currently on a hiring spree to expand its already enormous staff of agents, and it has lifted all age requirements, is offering signing bonuses as high as $50,000 and student loan repayments up to $60,000 in order to attract as many applicants as quickly as possible.

In reality, ICE’s call for “patriotic” Americans to join up is most likely to attract those who seek to earn a living from beating and kidnapping immigrants.

As Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the immigrant-rights group America’s Voice, remarked, “Take a teenager with more testosterone than wisdom, arm them with guns and masks, fast cars and—to top it off—dangle cash incentives for indiscriminate and speedy arrests. Mix in an ICE culture of impunity and overreach. Now, what could go wrong?”

On August 11, as noted above, Trump deployed the National Guard, this time to Washington, DC, again feigning a nonexistent “emergency”. At a press conference dripping with racist dog whistles, Trump claimed that “our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people.” DC, like other large US cities, is experiencing a record-low violent crime rate—its lowest in 30 years—so Trump’s “emergency” claim is transparently false.

Nevertheless, that was the Trump administration’s excuse for a federal takeover of the city’s police department, installing the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Terry Cole, as “emergency police commissioner” with all the powers of the police chief. Trump has, for all intents and purposes, put the city of Washington, DC into federal receivership.

On August 12, the Washington Post reported that the Trump administration is evaluating “plans that would establish a ‘Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force’ composed of hundreds of National Guard troops tasked with rapidly deploying into American cities facing protests or other unrest, according to internal Pentagon documents… The plan calls for 600 troops to be on standby at all times so they can deploy in as little as one hour.”

These latest developments demonstrate that Trump and his closest advisers are working to push the limits of authoritarian rule, to establish precedents that can be used as steppingstones to further curtail and crush genuine expressions of democracy and dissent as they fulfill their vision of the US as a white man’s country.

If it weren’t obvious already, it is now: All of us, whatever our immigration status, will suffer if the Trump administration continues to advance its authoritarian agenda—because it was never just about immigration.

Paul D'Amato

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Paul D'Amato is the author of The Meaning of Marxism and was the editor of the International Socialist Review. He is the author of numerous articles on a wide array of topics.