US Background on Trump's War on Immigrants
We all know that we can expect anything from Donald Trump, no matter how crazy or surprising it may seem. Not content with mobilizing the National Guard against immigrants or sending detainees caught in ruthless raids to jail in El Salvador, as well as locking them up in Guantanamo Bay or ordering the reopening of the infamous Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay, his latest scheme is to open Alligator Alcatraz, amidst smiles and jokes, at the beginning of July.
If Trump sees in a devastated Gaza an opportunity to build a resort, a theme park in the style of Las Vegas or Benidorm, on the ruins and thousands of corpses, it's no wonder he's enthusiastically opening a new immigration detention center on a former airfield in the Florida Everglades, already known as Alligator Alcaraz, surrounded by swamps infested with hungry and ferocious alligators and snakes.
With a capacity for 5,000 inmates, they will sleep in bunks inside tents, which will include cages, presumably for the most rebellious. Besides being brilliant, Trump believes, it's an idea that requires very little investment, since it avoids the costly construction of buildings and, instead of hundreds of prison officers, will be guarded 24/7 by patrols of alligators, snakes, and all manner of gruesome predators.
Now, all Trump is doing is following the path forged by his predecessors in the White House, who, whether Republican or Democrat, did not hesitate to lock up anyone considered an enemy of the nation. This did not exclude national dissidents, starting with trade unionists who, at any moment, like immigrants, could be considered traitors to the country.
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When President Woodrow Wilson declared war on Germany in 1917, there were some nine million first- or second-generation German citizens in the United States, as well as 4.5 million Irish, who became suspect overnight, as their loyalty to the British allies was questioned. But hundreds of thousands of socialists and trade unionists who opposed the war were also stigmatized.
A rampant popular persecution against all things German broke out. Many of their businesses were attacked, and lynchings took place. Many, in anticipation of future attacks, hastened to anglicize their names and surnames.
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They also implemented closures, that is, censorship of any suspicious media outlet, mostly of leftist ideology and in foreign languages. The Bolshevik revolution, still underway, provoked even more fear than the savage Teutonic warriors. But we must not forget that there was always a marked anti-Semitic undercurrent. In short, during Wilson's second presidency, being a dissident made one a traitor.
When the United States declared war on Germany and Japan in 1941 following the Japanese destruction of Pearl Harbor, it was first- and second-generation Japanese who became suspected enemies of the homeland overnight. In 1942, President Roosevelt decreed that more than 110,000 Japanese residents, mostly American citizens and unsuspecting, be interned in internment camps located in remote desert areas in the west of the country.
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More examples? The witch hunts during the dark years of McCarthyism or, after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush authorized, also by decree, the persecution—including imprisonment and torture—of anyone suspected of being an enemy of the homeland.
And now there's Trump, who, among other things, is nothing more than a traditionist, albeit with German ancestors.
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