Washington, DC – Below is a column by Maribel Hastings from America’s Voice en Español translated to English from Spanish. It ran in several Spanish-language media outlets earlier this week:
As the November 3 midterm elections approach, Donald Trump’s excesses are intensifying in his crude attempt to distract voters from the economic disaster his policies and decisions have caused. It’s no wonder his approval rating stands at 32 percent—the lowest of his political career—according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll.
Support for Trump is also eroding among Hispanic voters in districts and states that will be decisive for a likely change in control of Congress.
Trump is threatening to tear down the Kennedy Center because he has failed to have his name added to the historic facility. He is revoking White House press credentials for journalists from CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO because he dislikes how they cover his presidency. He accuses them of reporting “fake” news—even though he himself is the king of falsehoods, such as claiming that there is a widespread problem of non-citizens voting fraudulently.
And even though poll after poll shows voters disapprove of the excesses of his immigration policy, over the weekend, agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were involved in several violent incidents.
In Austin, Texas, ICE agents shot a DoorDash delivery driver, 28-year-old Venezuelan Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez. The young man claims that a van struck his car twice and that he did not realize they were agents until they turned on their lights and sirens, which is why he proceeded to pull over to a safer location.
DHS claims there was a chase, but regardless of the circumstances, Garcés was shot near his spine, is being held by ICE, and the bullet has not yet been removed.
“He is being held in Pearsall for questioning and still has the bullet lodged in his body. He has not received any pain medication and has had to sleep on the floor,” his attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, wrote on X.
This is the third Latino to be shot by ICE in recent months. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo died in Houston on July 7 during a traffic stop. Salgado Araujo was in the process of regularizing his immigration status. On July 13, an ICE agent killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine. The 25-year-old Colombian immigrant had a work permit.
In another incident in Evanston, Illinois, ICE agents who were allegedly searching for a fugitive beat a man who turned out to be a U.S. citizen and was not the fugitive they were looking for. They left him on the ground with injuries to his neck, head, and teeth. The agents fled, and it was residents who took him to the hospital.
This is the same ICE that shot and killed U.S. citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti in separate incidents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, earlier this year.
Then DHS blames the victims, and impunity prevails.
However, polls and protests across the country reflect the discontent and frustration of an electorate whose promises were not kept. Trump promised to lower the cost of living and fix the immigration system by removing “the worst of the worst” from the country.
But what he did was fund a detention and deportation machine targeting people with no criminal history. In the process, he has torn families apart, left behind family members—including citizen children—economically destitute, and depleted the workforce in key industries of our economy such as agriculture, construction, restaurants, hotels, and hospitals.
A cruel and violent system that continues to claim lives during raids and in detention centers that receive billions of dollars yet provide neither food nor adequate medical care, and where abuse and mistreatment are the order of the day.
But that’s not all—his immigration policy raises prices for Americans through the ICE Tax.
To complete the picture, his war in Iran has sent fuel prices skyrocketing, and while he squanders billions on the armed conflict and his army of detentions and deportations, he is cutting benefits from social programs like Medicaid and leaving millions of Americans without health insurance.
Trump himself has created a perfect storm for change to take hold in November. If Americans channel their anger and frustration into votes, and if, of course, the president doesn’t pull some “crisis” out of thin air to interfere in the election.
The original Spanish version is here.
