Trump’s Anti-Migration Purge Is Breaking Up Military Families, Screwing Afghan Allies

from the MAGA-just-means-hating-American dept

The content of their character was never up for consideration. Under Donald Trump, the only thing that matters is the color of their skin. That’s why almost every single person granted asylum since Trump took office has been white. That’s why Trump has been asking (out loud!) why we keep getting migrants from “shithole” countries (like those located in South America, Africa, and Latin America) rather than blond haired, blue eyed expats from Scandinavian countries whose residents’ lives would become noticeably worse if they chose to move to the US.

The president wraps himself in the flag, delivers a lot of garbled Team USA jingoism, and routinely proclaims we have the best military in the world. But even the people most directly responsible for keeping the US on top of the military game aren’t allowed to remain here if they’re not white.

Jose Serrano, an active duty soldier who served three tours in Afghanistan, said immigration agents arrested his wife April 14 as they attended an appointment with immigration services to take steps toward her permanent residency.

“A person opened the door, escorted us through the hallway, and at the end of the hallway, my wife got arrested,” Serrano said. “Arrested without any order, any warrant … They took away my wife. They don’t tell me anything.”

On top of all this awfulness, this incident shows ICE isn’t actually shifting away from immigration court arrests despite (1) officials saying otherwise, and (2) more importantly, ICE itself supposedly letting officers know that court arrests like these are not allowed under current ICE policy.

The regular awfulness is this: the Trump administration is willing to attack its own military if it means racking up a few more arrests and deportations:

[L]ast April, DHS eliminated a 2022 policy that considered military service of an immediate family member to be a “significant mitigating factor” in deciding whether or not to pursue immigration enforcement. The administration’s new policy states that “military service alone does not exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. immigration laws.”

It’s not just this nation’s relationship with its own military that’s being permanently damaged by Trump’s bigoted war on non-white people. It’s also any future relationships we might have in countries where we’re engaged in combat. When the US began its full withdrawal from Afghanistan, it promised protections to Afghans who worked with the military to provide intelligence or otherwise aided in the US in the decades-long war.

That’s all being tossed aside by Trump because he and his administration simply just don’t like non-white people.

After halting a U.S. resettlement program for Afghans who helped the American war effort, President Trump is in talks to send as many as 1,100 of them to the Democratic Republic of Congo, an aid worker briefed on the plan said Tuesday.

The group includes interpreters for the U.S. military, former members of the Afghan Special Operations forces and family members of American service members. More than 400 children are among them.

The Afghans have been living in limbo in Qatar for over a year. They were taken there after being evacuated by the United States for their own safety because they supported American forces during the war against the Taliban that began in 2001.

Thanks for your help. Now, go fuck yourselves. That’s the message the US is sending to people who aided the US during this war. It’s the kind of message that isn’t likely to score it any allies as it resumes hostilities in the Middle East.

This report says Trump is “in talks” with DRC to pursue this “resettlement” of Afghan allies — one the administration pursues despite the protests of the people who risked their own lives to assist the US during the Afghanistan war.

It’s hard to believe Trump is actually engaged in anything. DRC already has a refugee problem of its own.

More than 600,000 refugees, mostly from the Central African Republic and Rwanda, are currently in Congo, according to the United Nations. Human rights activists say that the country is not equipped to take in more in the midst of fighting with neighboring Rwanda that has displaced even more people because of attacks on refugee camps.

On top of this, many Afghan allies already have family members living in the United States due to previous efforts made by the Biden administration to protect those who aided the US. This forced resettlement in, well, pretty much any African country that agrees to take them divides even more families. It also demonstrates the United States is not to be trusted when it offers favors in return for assistance. All it takes is an election cycle to roll back guarantees and turn trusted allies into just another set of people being moved from “shithole country” to “shithole country” by a bunch of bigots who would rather destroy America than allow any more non-white people to become residents of what used the be the world’s “melting pot.”

At least for now, Trump has seemingly found a willing dumping ground for people he doesn’t want in this country:

On April 17, the U.S. government deported 15 people to the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a deeply impoverished African country that’s been scarred by years of conflict.

The group—comprising men and women from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru—is the first to arrive as part of a secretive migration deal brokered with the Trump administration.

“They took us, they put us on a plane, and they chained us by our hands and feet,” said one Colombian man, sitting on a plastic chair in a shabby hotel near Kinshasa’s airport. The deportees didn’t know their final destination until they were on the plane, he added.

Like El Salvador, I’m sure the DRC is more than happy to take our money to take some people off our hands. And like El Salvador, I’m sure the DRC government doesn’t actually care what happens to any of these people being shoved out of DHS charter flights like so much human refuse. If the US can’t be bothered to care, why should some third party in a developing nation do anything more than allow planes to land so long as the checks keep clearing?

This is what America is now: a place where human rights, civil liberties, and basic human morality are no longer weaved into the fabric of the nation. America is no longer the world’s policeman. It is now the world’s corrupt, racist sheriff.

Filed Under: afghanistan, bigotry, cruelty, dhs, ice, mass deportation, pete hegseth, trump administration, us military