The Trump administration’s immigration efforts are geared toward achieving an overarching objective: paralyzing people with fear. Yes, those efforts are a shambolic mess, but that’s true of everything President Donald Trump touches.
Initially, it did look like some of the cruelest, stupidest actions were a product of overreach and him moving too fast. How else to explain sending Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the one place—El Salvador—where he had specific protection against being sent? Or deporting young children, including at least one 4-year-old U.S. citizen with cancer? Or arresting judges?
All of these have garnered the negative attention they deserve. However, that’s often wrapped in the belief that surely many of these things are their own goals, that they must be mistakes because they’re so transparently awful.
That belief is part self-protection, part wish fulfillment. Surely, we tell ourselves, the administration doesn’t have an actual policy about deporting 2-year-old U.S. citizens, but rather some 2-year-olds are being deported in error because of how swiftly the administration has moved to implement its immigration plans.
However, as those apparent errors mount, they look less like errors and more like decisions, like deliberate choices to keep people in a constant state of fear. Put another way, if the administration felt that deporting 2-year-olds was a bridge too far, it’s well within their power to simply stop deporting 2-year-olds. But they really, really want to deport 2-year-olds. And also kids with cancer.
At first, we knew only about one child—a 2-year-old known only as “VML”—and only thanks to a Trump appointee, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty. Last Friday, Doughty issued an order saying he had a “strong suspicion” that VML, an American citizen who is—again—2 years old, was deported “with no meaningful process.”
VML’s father had filed an emergency petition last Thursday night asking the court to release VML from custody. Before court opened the next morning, VML had already been put on a plane.
The administration played the same game with Judge Doughty as it did with U.S. District Judge James Boasberg. In that case, Boasberg ordered the government to turn around two planes carrying hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador. The government defied that order and justified it in part by saying “Whoopsie, too late” because when the order was issued, the immigrants were no longer in U.S. territory.
In VML’s case, the government told the court that the child’s mother wanted the girl to be deported with her. Judge Doughty didn’t agree to just take the administration’s assertion at face value, and contacted the DOJ attorney so that he could talk with VML’s mother to see if she had consented and what her custodial rights were. But whoopsie, again, too late! The attorney didn’t bother to call the court back until 45 minutes later, at which point they told the judge a call with the mother was impossible because they had already been released in Honduras.
VML wasn’t the only child the government deported to Honduras on Friday.
A 4-year-old and a 7-year-old, both American citizens, were deported along with their noncitizen mother as well, despite the fact that the 4-year-old is currently receiving treatment for a rare form of late-stage cancer. In both instances, the mothers were detained after voluntarily attending a routine Intensive Supervision Appearance Program appearance in Louisiana. ISAP is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement program that is an alternative to detention for noncitizens and requires regular check-ins.
So, the government basically waited for mothers who were following the law by attending their check-ins. Their reward for following the law was to be deported with their children, with no meaningful opportunity to contest their deportation or that of their children.
This isn’t a mistake. It’s a pattern, and the administration has every intention of continuing. That’s clear from Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s smug defense of the removal during his “Meet the Press” appearance on Sunday. There, he acknowledged the children are U.S. citizens, but claimed that they were not deported. Instead, they voluntarily left with their mothers, who were deported.
Then there’s the persistent refusal to return Abrego Garcia. There’s no dispute that he was deported in error. The government has admitted it multiple times. But rather than bringing him home, they’ve doubled down on a ludicrous argument that they are powerless to tell El Salvador to send him back. If the government wanted to return Abrego Garcia, it would be trivially easy for them to do so.
The FBI’s arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan is also designed to generate fear. Dugan was charged with obstruction for allegedly helping an undocumented man exit her courtroom to avoid apprehension by ICE. Arresting a sitting judge seems like the textbook version of overreach, something that might get walked back after the public outcry. Instead, the administration would like you to know that Dugan’s arrest was neither an error nor a onetime occurrence, and they plan to continue.
In response to a question from Fox News’ Peter Doocy about whether the administration would arrest a federal judge or a Supreme Court justice, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt first declared that it was a hypothetical question. Hmm. Might be hypothetical if you hadn’t already arrested a judge.
Leavitt went on to say, “Anyone who is breaking the law or obstructing federal law enforcement officials from doing their jobs is putting themselves at risk of being prosecuted.”
Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s counterterrorism czar, would go even further. Per Gorka, even just advocating for the release of Abrego Garcia is aiding and abetting terrorists.
It isn’t an accident that the administration has harmed people with sympathetic stories. Making 4-year-olds with cancer the antagonist of your immigration crackdown isn’t just morally repugnant. It also looks terrible and sparks immediate and widespread disapproval. Telling the world you’ve got no problem arresting judges doesn’t land super well, either.
But that’s the point.
The administration wants everyone to know that nothing will protect you. There’s no bridge too far, no line they won’t cross. If they’ll deport 2-year-olds and not give it a second thought, if they’ll leave someone in a violent prison overseas, if they’ll roll up on a judge and arrest her at the courthouse, they’ll do anything. The fear is absolutely the point.