by Lorenzo Canizares 3/26/25
This coming Saturday (3/29/25), a massive rally is being planned in Miami at the Krome Detention Center to protest the inhumane conditions that immigration detainees are facing in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
As per a 3/21/25 article by Alex DeLuca in Miami New Times, “An immigration attorney (who spoke with New Times on the condition of anonymity) says she visited a client at Krome this week and saw what she described as a ‘humanitarian disaster.’”
Not only did she witness dorms that were severely overpopulated, but also what appeared to be a food shortage when she observed a guard serve her client a meal consisting solely of rice and bread.
Another client, the attorney said, told her that he slept on the floor for 11 days when he was first brought in.
“I was sitting in my visitation room and there were people knocking for me to get a guard because they had no water,” the attorney said.
There have already been three deaths in the detention center in just over a month of Trump’s presidency.
To add to the mayhem, on April 24, the Trump administration announced its plan to revoke the temporary legal status of 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. This persecution of people who were once enticed to come to the United States, especially from “socialist” countries like Cuba, is a cynical about-face in immigration policy, according to Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla.
The United States has waged a continuous sanctions war with these countries, making day-to-day living extremely unpleasant for their populations, bombarding them with statements of how wonderful it is to live the American Dream. Many of these same people end up spending thousands of dollars on guides to lead them to the promised land.. only to see their pursuit of the American Dream turn into a nightmare.
To their base, the Trump administration justifies this cruelty by reminding them of one of their main goals: to ensure that the U.S. remains under white control. White control means white supremacy; and keeping the country white implies that all others are at risk of deportation, especially those who can be easily banished without much legal hassle.
As I said in my last article, we are on the verge of fascism. One characteristic of fascism is that hate is targeted at a particular group of people. As the prominent German Lutheran pastor, Martin Niemöller once said, “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Niemöller’s statement, apart from its sequential beauty, is also a profound statement of what happens when people see themselves in different silos rather than as being part of a collective endeavor. Although the sequence of persecution that Niemöller pointed out occurred in Nazi Germany, it can be adjusted to the circumstances of different components of any particular nation that is under fascist ideological attack. But the bottom line is the same – a greedy minority that takes total control of the government apparatus to the detriment of the majority.
And sadly, that is what has happened in the USA. All three branches of government are under Republican control. Granted, the judicial branch of government is not yet totally obliterated and there is still some hope that the House of Representatives will come under Democratic control, but as it is, if there is a judicial decision that the Trump administration decides not to abide by, who is going to enforce the judicial decision?
In a magnificent article in WagingNonViolence.org, Rivera Sun states, “From boycotts to mass noncompliance to street demonstrations, the response to the Trump administration’s policies has consisted of an impressive range of nonviolent tactics. More than just outraged protests, people are thwarting raids, refusing to obey unjust orders, standing up to bully politics and taking risks to do the right thing. The resistance is diverse, multi-stranded and feisty — and some of it is working. It has forced Trump to reverse course or push the brakes on numerous issues, including his original plan for 25 percent tariffs, funding freeze, federal worker buyout deal, firing USDA and CFPB workers, and more.”
One of the reasons white supremacists want to “purify the bloodlines of the nation” is that their scheme of wielding total control will only work through selling the idea of racial supremacy. The diversity of this country is a major obstacle to their plans of dominance. God forbid a unity between the white working class (the shock troops of the Greed Machine) and the rest of America who in a few decades will likely be the majority of the population.
Many immigrants who came for the American Dream instead, found the American nightmare. The intent of the Greed Machine is to extend the nightmare to as many of us as possible. Our nightmare is a source of profits for them. There is already talk of allowing 14-year-olds to do night work to compensate for jobs that immigrants used to do.
The fight to protect immigrants is our fight too. Most of us came to this country for the same reasons that they did.
They Came to Pursue the American Dream
Posted in Pulse Line 1.