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:
This week marks the first 100 days of the second Donald Trump presidency, and there has been so much chaos it seems like 100 years have passed.
Trump is attempting to govern by decree and, to that end, has signed 142 executive orders that cover a wide range of topics, from immigration to the dismantling of the federal government, with the elimination of agencies and mass dismissals; the weakening of civil rights; attacks on due process of law; and the annihilation of the economy, among many other matters.
His objective is to overwhelm those impacted and the public, to provoke inaction. While it’s true that these orders have done a lot of damage, it’s also true that everything Trump has wanted to implement has not materialized, whether because of court rulings or because the administration itself has reversed initiatives.
It’s too early to make a complete accounting of all the damage that these executive orders have inflicted over the past 100 days. On immigration matters, the strategy consists of sowing panic through mass deportations and indiscriminate detentions, and it has been evident that their target is not only undocumented immigrants but also authorized residents and citizens.
The high level of cruelty is another hallmark of Trump’s anti-immigrant crusade. The Washington Post reported that last week, three citizen children — two, four, and seven years old, respectively, from different families — were deported from Louisiana. “One of them is a 4-year-old boy with stage 4 cancer who was deported without medication or the ability to contact their doctors,” the article says.
That is, the parents could not even appeal their deportation orders, nor were they allowed the presence of their attorneys, and the citizen children’s rights were violated with impunity because, for the Trump administration, there is no difference between the “criminals” they say they want to deport, and a four-year-old citizen child with cancer.
Maybe that is why, to commemorate his first 100 days, Trump ordered the hanging of posters, with the photos of undocumented immigrants accused of committing crimes like murder, kidnapping, and rape, among other things, on the White House grounds. To sustain the narrative that immigrants are “criminals.”
According to a US News and World Report analysis, many of the most controversial executive orders, including those on immigration, have been challenged in court; some have been blocked, or the cases remain pending.
For example, the executive order to put an end to birthright citizenship has been temporarily blocked. Another order to suspend asylum “until the invasion ends,” according to Trump, is pending. And another to deny federal funds to sanctuary cities has also been temporarily blocked.
Trump has been able to inflict profound damage by trying to eliminate programs that had permitted immigrants and refugees, like TPS beneficiaries or those who have humanitarian parole, to obtain temporary documentation. Once again, a court has prevented Trump from ordering the immediate removal of a half million Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans covered under the CHNV program.
More than 200 lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration by individuals, organizations, and states.
The summary deportation of immigrants without due process of law, accusing them of being “gang members” or “terrorists,” not only sows panic in communities and divides families, but it violates the rule of law and sets a dangerous precedent that could even affect U.S. citizens.
The anti-immigrant crusade is the tip of the iceberg in a much broader strategy, with multiple victims. Just remember that Trump wants to finance his mass deportation campaign and tax breaks for billionaires with cuts to vital programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and SNAP, among others, which would affect the lives of millions of citizens of this country.
These first hundred days have seen disorder, cruelty, and actions that are — in many cases — illegitimate and unconstitutional, and this is just a little taste of what is to come in the obstacle course that is the Trump presidency. Resist continues to be the call.
The original Spanish version is here.
