Our neighbors are being targeted by ICE. Who is stepping up to protect them? | In Conversation

Donald Trump’s barrage of executive orders last week included several related to immigration, including an attempt to limit birthright citizenship and declaring a national emergency at the southern border. The administration has also increased the number of mass arrests made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with Philadelphia seeing the detention of seven people at a car wash on East Hunting Park Avenue on Tuesday.

Luis F. Carrasco, deputy opinion editor, spoke with Inquirer columnist Helen Ubiñas and Sabrina Vourvoulias, senior editor for commentary, ideas, and community engagement, about what the first two weeks of Trump’s second term have meant for immigrants and what’s been the response (or lack of) by the community and public officials.

Luis F. Carrasco: In trying to fulfill Trump’s campaign promise to deport millions of people who are in the U.S. illegally, the administration said it would initially target those with a criminal history. Asked Tuesday about how many of the people detained so far had criminal records, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that “all of them because they illegally broke our nation’s laws.” I wonder how many people, even many who voted for Trump, really think that trying to make a living off tips at a North Philly car wash is criminal behavior. Watching video of the workers being detained by ICE agents was truly distressing. Part of that was the plain, matter-of-fact resignation on the men’s faces even as their lives and those of their families have now been upended for the benefit of … whom exactly?

Helen Ubiñas: More like for the benefit of what exactly, right? This was never really about immigration reform or law and order. It was, is, and will continue to be about racism, plain and simple, against Black and brown people — especially those who speak Spanish. That’s what comes through in that video. And if anyone is confused about that, watch it, and then watch it again and again, and ask yourself: What part of that is making America great again? (A necessary public service announcement: Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.)

Sabrina Vourvoulias: The proof it was never about actual immigration status makes itself evident every time we write about the topic — people who dislike what we are saying send us emails demanding we be deported for our thoughts. Deportation is the dream punishment Trump and his people want to mete out to those who don’t agree with them, as well as to those they’ve spent years portraying as subhuman. In unleashing ICE on our neighborhoods, the Trump administration is counting on the public not caring if the people snapped up in the raids are involved in any criminal behavior. Instead, they hope people will cheer the performative swarm of ICE agents overwhelming unassuming people going about their everyday lives. Achievement unlocked if you can sow terror in the targeted community.

Ubiñas: What they are also counting on — besides the willfully ignorant among us buying into these raids actually targeting criminals — is that the people who are against these terrorizing tactics are overwhelmed and sincerely unsure of what to do, where to turn, and how to even begin to help. I get that. And anyone with a beating heart would be lying if they said they aren’t feeling the same about a million times a day since half of Americans voted for a second horrific ride on the Trump train. But this is where we need to remind ourselves — and each other — not to give them what they want. They want us to freeze, to go numb … to wait for somebody else to do or say something. This is on all of us — we don’t all have to be fighting in the same way, or even on the same day — but we have to fight in ways big and small every chance we get. And in case anyone is confused about what we’re fighting for — yes, it’s our fragile democracy, but it’s also our shared humanity.

Carrasco: Tell that to the Democrats who voted for the Laken Riley Act. The bipartisan legislation — which Trump signed into law Wednesday and which was cosponsored in the Senate by Pennsylvania’s own John Fetterman — does away with due process for not only immigrants who are in the country without authorization but for those allowed to be here legally through Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) or with Temporary Protected Status. If these immigrants are even accused of minor offenses, they can be detained and are subject to deportation. The logic behind this is that the Venezuelan man who killed Georgia nursing student Laken Riley had been arrested for shoplifting, clearly showing, one assumes, the unavoidable path from petty theft to murder. It’s hard not to go numb when it’s not only Republican lawmakers who have sold their souls, but also desperate Democrats trying to show they’re tough on immigration.

Vourvoulias: Democrats couldn’t even muster enough will to fight for immigrants when Trump and JD Vance were fabricating their anti-immigrant fairy tales about Haitians eating dogs during the campaign. Everything on immigration from the Democrats recently has been weak tea. The Laken Riley Act is law now because neither Republicans nor their Democratic enablers treat immigrants as real human beings entitled to real human rights — like in the International Bill of Human Rights: “A detained person suspected of or charged with a criminal offense shall be presumed innocent and shall be treated as such until proved guilty according to law in a public trial.” Makes me wonder what Gisele Barreto Fetterman — herself an unauthorized immigrant for a number of years until her immigration status was regularized — thinks of her husband’s recent vote. Você deve falar sobre imigração agora, Gisele.

Ubiñas: I don’t disagree — I’ve wondered the same, and would love to hear Gisele forcefully come out in defense of immigrants right now, which is something she’s done in the past. But if we’re going to call on Gisele to speak for her husband’s sins, then we should call on all the other stand-by-your-man spouses who support their shady significant others — and that includes actress Cheryl Hines, who obediently sat behind her husband Robert Kennedy Jr. this week during his Senate confirmation hearing, where he once again proved he is unfit to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Bottom line: There are no political heroes here. Trump and his supporters weaponize fear and white grievance to justify and inflict as much pain as possible on our most marginalized. And Democrats weaponize fear to paint themselves as knights in shining armor riding in on a white horse to rescue us all. Except they’ve proven to be no one’s savior, and they’re out here limping in on a burro that’s collapsing under the load of their broken promises.

Vourvoulias: Maybe the only promises that mean anything currently are those made at the local level. The pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas in South Philly — which serves multiple immigrant communities — courageously pledging that ICE will be stopped at the door of the church, warrant or no warrant. City officials, too, must make promises to scared residents who are being bombarded with ever more alarming disinformation. We recently published a commentary by Israel Colón, a longtime leader of Philly’s Latino community, outlining what city officials need to do right now — including a central clearinghouse number where people can call for real information and help — to make sure Philadelphia is protecting its residents from the effects of an utterly feral Trump administration.

Ubiñas: As I’ve repeatedly said, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker should have been front and center on this issue on Day One of Trump 2.0, and spare me the justifications for her silence as of press time, including not wanting to call attention to us or put a bigger target on our backs. There’s no escaping this, there’s no hoping it passes if we just stay silent and out of the way. Philadelphians are afraid and in hiding; they are skipping work and school and church, and making themselves as small as possible. They are worried about their loved ones and neighbors. They need to hear from their local leaders loudly and often in meaningful ways — and they need to know their city not only has their back but that it has a plan to protect them, no matter who is in office.

Carrasco: Immigrants who are in the country illegally did break the law, but there is no justice in rounding people up and deporting them. There is no great wrong being set right. One of the persistent misconceptions is that there is a line and that the people who cross the border without authorization do so because they can’t be bothered to wait. Putting aside those legally seeking asylum (for which there was a line that Trump did away with), there is no queue for the kinds and numbers of economic migrants who come here because the U.S. needs their labor. Our leaders are catering to people who are too racist to admit that, while too many of us are too hypocritical to care. We welcome the benefits immigrants give us, but can’t be bothered to protect what we coldly see as a resource that, no matter how much we exploit, abuse, or malign, is also renewable. If that’s not who we are, then we must all speak out and push back.