This is a white supremacist purge.
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I want to say it was 2018. A local library was hosting a “Black and Brown” event to discuss the new Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies such as the Muslim ban and how it would affect communities. Christian Ramirez, a local civil rights advocate asked me to attend. The longer I sat in the uncomfortable metal folding chair, the more anxious I became. This was the beginning of my journey.
How do I say it?
I found it difficult to look at her as she told her story of how the agents beat and tased her husband to death. It was my first time hearing the Anastasio Hernandez Rojas story. Long before my book was written, it would be another few years before I would realize I had processed him eleven years earlier in 1999, to the day, to the hour he was killed by my fellow agents. She relived her trauma of those days for us all to hear, to educate and warn of the dangers of finding yourself in US immigration custody.
And I was so far from understanding my racism back then; just beginning to listen to victims, starting to think about my role in it all, not wanting to admit I had willing joined such brutality. But when a young man said he was not worried because he was not a “criminal,” the connection was undeniable in my mind and something in me said I needed to stand up and say it.
They do not know that agents think they are all “criminals.”
I told them they were misunderstanding what was coming for them. That this was more about white supremacy than anyone was ready to admit. That the immigration agencies do not follow the same rules as regular cops. That they would soon have to prove their citizenship just because of the color of their skin. That it would all be legal in the eyes of the courts. It was quiet after that, and I felt I had said too much, too soon.
“My comrade back there, she was one of them. She knows what she speaks…” the gist I got from Maria Puga’s Spanish.
That kind of talk got me banned from local media. They said I went too far suggesting agents were racist and then thanked me for my service. For cable news, too far was saying that it was concerning to hear federal agencies use the same term of “invader” for migrants as white supremacist groups.
It is 2025, and in the first days of Trump’s second term he used the “invasion” caused by his policies of shutting down the asylum system to justify mass deportations and a national emergency on the southern border even though illegal crossings are low. The US government is building concentration camps on military bases. In February, many people disappeared off American streets to land in countries not their own, in hotels they cannot leave. Now it is March, and a student protestor has been arrested for exercising his First Amendment right to peacefully protest the slaughter of innocent Palestinians on a university campus. This week, the federal government announced they will not prosecute those who sexually assault undocumented children in their custody.
I have said it in every way that I know is possible.
Gangs of cops are scouring the nation looking for people of color without papers. All cops from every agency, every level of government are hunting people of color in schools, churches, farms, businesses, homes. They are banging on doors demanding entry without warrants, arresting mostly non-criminals, separating families, leaving children without parents, spouses without partners.
ICE, Border Patrol and CBP are training these cops to enforce the law the immigration way; less civil rights, violence, coverup teams and disappearances. There is no oversight into these gangs, no accountability. Complaints of violence and serious injuries are met with quick removals. American citizens are already being caught up in the raids.
I must be direct as possible.
We are a fascist country; a country unwilling to learn from its racism, doomed to constantly repeat its racist history. Cops who have falsely wrapped themselves in the charred flags of 9/11 are violating their oaths to the Constitution of the United States. This is a white supremacist purge. It is about restoring this nation to its original class system and redistributing the wealth back to the wealthy.
Resist.