“The brutality will not stop as long as Miller/Trump continue their mass deportation fever dream”
We noted last month that much-hyped personnel changes that included the firing of now-former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem were nothing more than a public relations stunt and that as long as de-facto President Stephen Miller continues to stick around and dictate the anti-immigrant agenda, mass deportation rages on unabated. Just take it from one of those “new” faces themselves.
MILLER AND HOMAN REMAIN IN CHARGE
So-called “border czar” Tom Homan – who replaced disgraced former Border Patrol official Greg Bovino following his deadly and chaotic invasion of Minnesota under “Operation Metro Surge” – boasted that mass deportation “won’t skip a beat” following the recent firing of Attorney General Pam Bondi. Instead, it will actually “ramp-up,” he said.
“The president’s already set the priorities on immigration enforcement,” Homan told Fox News late last week. “You’re [going to] see arrests go up. You’re [going to] see more worksite enforcement operations coming. So you’re [going to] see a ramp-up in immigration enforcement in this country.”
Meanwhile, his actual boss – Miller, and not Noem replacement Markwayne Mullin – “is still pursuing his immigration agenda, but more quietly,” as The New York Times reported. While the administration’s anti-immigrant agenda is tanking among the American people and could spell doom for Republicans in the upcoming midterms, his nativist obsessions matter more. “White House officials in recent weeks have said that Mr. Miller grew frustrated with Ms. Noem and the attention-grabbing approach to immigration operations endorsed by her and some of her top lieutenants,” the report said. “But there is little to no evidence that Mr. Miller pushed back against the aggressive tactics of agents that prompted bipartisan criticism.”
In other words, there’s no plan from the top to readjust anything. He’s just hoping you don’t notice stories like The Marshall Project report detailing the fact that Donald Trump has detained more than 6,200 children in his second term, many beyond the legal detention limit set by the courts.
CHILDREN ABUSED IN OUR NAME
At the migrant family jail in Dilley, Texas, families “have raised more than 700 complaints over medical care with lawyers, according to court filings,” the report said. “In one instance, a baby received poor care before being sent to the hospital with dangerously low oxygen levels. Families have reported children in mental distress: a two-year-old who hit himself, potty-trained children who began wetting themselves, and a 13-year-old who was put into isolation after attempting suicide.”
Even short periods of detention can be damaging to children, as experts have said. But instead of allowing children and their families to remain where they feel safest – at home in their own communities – the administration has detained more than 1,600 children beyond the 20-day limit under the Flores Agreement, forcing children to endure additional harms beyond their initial arrest and detention.
But other entirely preventable forms of abuse are also playing out beyond Dilley. The AP reports that a child who was torn from her mother after crossing the southern border and endured unnecessary additional time in foster care because the government stalled reunification with her dad was sexually abused during the length of her separation.
“During that time, according to court documents, the girl said she was sexually abused by an older child staying with her in foster care in Harlingen, Texas,” the report said. “A caregiver noticed the child’s underwear was on backward, according to the lawsuit. The girl then told the caregiver she was abused multiple times and it caused bleeding. Federal Office of Refugee Resettlement officials told the father that there had been an ‘accident’ and his daughter would be examined, he told the AP in an interview.”
The child’s father had attempted to reunite with the child but it “stalled as the government told him it couldn’t make an appointment to take his fingerprints,” the report said. “I asked them, ‘What happened? I want to know. I’m her father. I want to know what’s going on,’ and they just told me that they couldn’t give me more information, that it was under investigation,” he said.
“To have your child abused while in the government’s care, to not understand what has happened or how to protect them, to not even be told about the abuse, it is unimaginable,” the family’s attorney, Lauren Fisher Flores, told the AP. “Children deserve safety and they belong with their parents.”
DREAMERS RIPPED FROM LOVED ONES AND DETAINED
A second deeply troubling new story concerning a college student and U.S. military spouse captures how the real lives of countless young people growing up in America are being devastated by the federal government’s mass deportation crusade.
22-year-old Annie Ramos had everything going for her. She’s newly-married to a U.S. Army staff sergeant and is just months away from finishing up her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry. She also cares deeply for her community, teaching Sunday school to children at her local church. This should be one of the most exciting periods in her life. Instead, she got locked away in ICE detention. Ramos, who has no criminal record, was torn from her husband, U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Matthew Blank, as the couple was moving into his new base in Louisiana.
“‘Our plan was to drive over, bring her to the office to get her military ID and activate her military spouse benefits,’ such as health and life insurance, he said,” The New York Times reported. “She was going to move in after the Easter weekend,” Blank continued. “Instead, she got ripped away from me.”
But in some welcome news today, TheDream.US shared that Ramos has been released from detention. “All I have ever wanted is to live with dignity in the country I have called home since I was a baby,” she said. “I want to finish my degree, continue my education, and serve my community – just as my husband serves our country with honor.”
She should have never been detained in the first place. While Ramos tried to apply for DACA in 2020, her application “was never processed by the Trump administration because the program was halted for new applicants,” the report noted. Under Trump’s second term, DACA recipients have been facing agonizingly long renewal times that have put their work permits and protection from deportation at risk. This falls in line with the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which saw Miller serve on its advisory board and demanded that the federal government simply not task any staff to review DACA applications.
“I put in my renewal [in the] first week of December. I got the letter back saying it [was] received on December 9th, and since then it has been crickets,” DACA recipient Santiago Espinosa tells NBC Chicago. “I hope that I do not get deported. But there is an uncertainty that I have not felt in a long time. My renewal is just pending. I am one of thousands of people who check every day.”
MILLER’S NEWEST PUPPET
Meanwhile, the DHS secretary on paper – Mullin – could not be any more clear that he’s intending to continue his predecessor’s legacy of shenanigans while letting Miller hold the mass deportation reins. During a televised bit complaining that DHS has been the subject of too much scrutiny, Mullin seemed to claim that it’s actually us that are the problem and “suggested that he may retaliate against sanctuary cities by not allowing customs officers in their airports to admit international travelers,” The Daily Beast reports.
“One area we may take a hard look at is [how] some of these cities have international airports. If they are a sanctuary city, should they really be processing customs into their city?” Mullin asked. “Seriously, if they are a sanctuary city and they’re receiving international flights, and we’re asking them to partner with us at the airport, but once they walk out of the airport they are not going to enforce immigration policy, maybe we need have a really hard look at that, because we need to focus on cities that want to work with us.”
So the administration wants to put the public’s focus back on airports? Seems like another winning idea as Americans continue to be outraged over long waits, daily living costs, and ugly abuses that are resulting in the detention and even deaths of their neighbors.
UNCHECKED BRUTALITY AND CRUELTY OF MASS DEPORTATION IS STILL HERE
“Trump, Miller and Homan have made it very clear: nothing has changed and recent horrific incidents underscore this harsh reality,” said America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas. “Toddlers being abused as a result of detention. Military families – at a time of war – being targeted. These are more awful reminders why a majority of Americans are rejecting the Trump/Miller anti-immigrant agenda. The brutality will not stop as long as Miller/Trump continue their mass deportation fever dream.”
“All Americans and our elected officials must do more than voice concern. We must hold the line, demand real accountability, and force structural change. The question isn’t whether we oppose these abuses—it’s whether we’ll fight hard enough to stop them.”
