Washington, DC — As the GOP moves forward on a budget to gift an additional more than $70 billion on top of the more than $170 billion funded last year to fund mass deportation, the cruelty and chaos is built-in by design. This aspect of the Trump and Miller mass deportation crusade is arguably the most damning indictment of their intentions.
The story of Chicago-area teen Kevin González underscores the cruelty at the heart of the Trump-Miller mass deportation agenda. Kevin, an 18-year-old U.S. citizen with terminal colon cancer, spent his final weeks publicly pleading for the release of his parents after ICE detained them. His parents were released just one day before his death. As The Guardian reported, Kevin’s father said through tears: “I don’t think he deserved the suffering he had.”
Meanwhile, the New York Times highlights the pressure campaign from the right for the administration to deliver on mass deportations — an effort that is likely with knowledge and approval of Stephen Miller and fellow administration hardliners. Notably, the pressure has encouraged open admissions from administration border czar Tom Homan and others that mass deportations are not only continuing, but likely to escalate despite the cruelty and costs. As Homan said last week, “If you think last year’s historic number is good, wait till next year and we have 10,000 more agents on the border. You ain’t seen s*** yet … This year will be a good year. Mass deportations are coming.”
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“The cruelty and chaos of mass deportation is built in, designed to inflict as much terror, disruption and disregard for human life as possible. Nevertheless, Congress is moving forward this week to mark up a budget bill gifting Stephen Miller with tens of billions more in taxpayer dollars to fund this ugly deportation machine. Just ask the family of Kevin Gonzalez, the Chicago teen dying of cancer who was only allowed to see his detained family members hours before his death.
The real lives harmed and real families destroyed by mass deportation are the most damning costs and consequences of the Trump/Miller anti-immigrant obsession. Congress will have to decide if their legacy will be delivering even more cruelty and more chaos across the country or listening to the majority of Americans rejecting this administration’s mass deportation crusade.”
