The Scope and Toll of the Trump Administration’s Ongoing Assault on Immigrants, Refugees and Core American Ideals

A collection of recent quotes captures the sweep and implications of Trump and his team taking a wrecking ball to the Statue of Liberty

Along the border and throughout the interior of our country, the Trump administration’s ongoing crackdown against immigrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, and core American ideals is in overdrive. In an effort to capture the scope, volume, and intensity of what is happening, we present a series of recent quotes capturing the toll and implications of the ongoing assault against the idea of a welcoming America.

Mecklenburg (NC) Assistant Public Defender Herman Little to Charlotte Observer, in an article detailing how, at a courthouse, ICE arrested mother and 16-year old son involved in a domestic violence hearing

“I’ve never seen anything like it before. How in the world is anybody going to get justice if both the victims and the defendants are not going to come to court because they’re all afraid of being deported? This is crazy.”

Anonymous U.S. citizen minor whose father was deported to Gambia, quoted in a new joint feature from the Marshall Project and New York Magazine

“I was at work when my sister called, crying: ‘They took Daddy. He went to his meeting with Immigration, and then they took him.’ My heart went down to my stomach. I told myself, He’s coming back. Three weeks, tops. We’ve gotta go back-to-school shopping. I’m gonna be a senior. He needs to help with my college applications … My dad got deported on January 3, 2018 … It’s not that he’s dead, but it’s just not the same. Here with my dad, that’s where I belong. In the living room, watching Judge Judy.”

Cecelia Friedman Levin, senior policy counsel at legal and advocacy organization ASISTA, to the Chicago Sun-Times in an article assessing the Trump administration’s pattern of deporting crime victims, while they wait for a U visa

“These cases come up on the regular. What that does, to my mind, is undermines the spirit of the protection to begin with.”

Immigration attorney David Leopold to the New York Times, assessing the Trump administration’s new denaturalization push

“You put a question mark next to every naturalized citizen’s name. And then you instill fear.”

Reflections of “Mayra” about the trauma experienced by her nine-year old son in detention, contained in a lawsuit filed last week in federal court

“He has been wetting his bed and is fearful all the time. He wonders when we will get to the United States. I do not tell him that we are already here. He wouldn’t believe that the United States would treat us this way.”

Former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, a drafter of the Refugee Act of 1980, in her letter to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, expressing why she was resigning from the Homeland Security Advisory Committee

“Under your administration and that of Donald Trump’s, DHS has been transformed into an agency that is making war on immigrants and refugees … The final straw has been the separation of children from their parents at the Southwest border. This is child kidnapping, plain and simple … Although it is I who am resigning in protest against these policies, it is you who should be tendering your resignation instead.”

Joe Biden speaking at LULAC’s national conference in Phoenix, AZ

“This administration’s policies that literally rip babies from the arms of their mothers and fathers — one of the darkest moments in our history.”

New York Magazine: “City of Fear –  20,000 of New York’s immigrants have been identified for deportation since Trump took office. The rest worry they’ll be next.”

“In the eight months following Donald Trump’s inauguration, ICE arrests in the region jumped by 67 percent compared to the same period in the previous year, and arrests of immigrants with no criminal convictions increased 225 percent….Trump’s immigration crackdown has instilled a new level of fear throughout the city.”

‘Dog cages,’ dirty water, and freezing temperatures: Immigrants describe squalid conditions at border facilities” –  Insider

One nine-year-old boy saw a person bound with chains and grew concerned that his mother, Mayra, would also be chained. He has been trying to protect his mother and his two-year-old sister, but he’s “experiencing his own psychological trauma,” Mayra said.  “He has been wetting his bed and is fearful all the time,” Mayra said. “He wonders when we will get to the United States. I do not tell him that we are already here. He wouldn’t believe that the United States would treat us this way.”

Paola Mendoza, filmmaker and activist on twitter

“2,000 kids are without their parents. 2,000 kids are without their parents. 2,000 kids are without their parents. 2,000 kids are without their parents. 2,000 kids are without their parents. 2,000 kids are without their parents.”