When Immigration Enforcement Goes Too Far

Immigration laws restrict immigration, but severe, widespread enforcement also means Americans would have to prove their citizenship on a regular basis to avoid detention, or worse, deportation. That’s because citizenship can’t be determined by appearance alone.

Yet even now, citizenship doesn’t guarantee safety. As the Department of Homeland Security has increased its surveillance and coercion of immigrants since the beginning of President Trump’s second term, American citizens have already been caught in its anti-immigration net. In “Papers Please,” MSNBC political commentator Chris Hayes explored the “Quiet erosion of freedom under Donald Trump.”

Speaking of freedom erosion, Acting Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tom Homan declared on Fox News that “People need to understand ICE officers and Border Patrol don’t need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain them, and question them…based on their physical appearance.”

The Totalitarian Logic of Immigration Controls highlights additional ways that immigration laws harm citizens:

• Immigration laws restrict private and commercial life as well as who citizens can befriend, marry, hire, or recruit.
• ICE conducts invasive searches for undocumented people in homes, businesses, courthouses, schools, churches, and ballparks.
• Elected officials have been physically assaulted, detained, and indicted for trying to protect immigrants or simply doing their jobs.
• Broad immigration restrictions come with a price: the surveillance, control, and intimidation of citizens.
• A government can use immigration policy as a pretext to expand its authoritarian power over the country, such as federalizing the National Guard whether state governors agree or not.

State and local impact

In Henrico County, citizens have already experienced the impact of the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement. 12 On Your Side reported that vandals had spray painted “SELF-DEPORT” on a resident’s fence.

In response to potential ICE raids in county schools, Henrico County Public Schools issued “a statement on immigration raids, launches resource webpage.”

Meanwhile, ICE Descends On Chesterfield County. A Rise in Virginia deportation orders sparks concern from some lawmakers and community and 13 Virginia sheriff’s offices sign agreements with ICE to help enforce immigration.

How do Americans feel about the current immigration policy?

President Trump has a mass deportation plan to remove about twenty-million non-citizens. That effort required massive shifts of law enforcement resources from arresting dangerous criminals to immigration efforts—endangering everyone’s safety.

But are the administration’s immigration goals consistent with what American citizens want?

Journalist Greg Sargeant reported that a “New CBS poll finds majority (55%) supports the *general goal* of deportations, but a bigger majority (56%) dislikes how Trump is carrying them out. And 63% want due process.” Gallup Poll data indicates a majority disapproves of President Trump’s immigration policy and believe immigration is “a good thing” for America.

When considering how strict immigration enforcement should be, we must choose what we value more: our freedom, or a totalitarian government that targets its own citizens.