Illegal, Immoral and Cruel

Over the past eleven months, the White House has enacted many questionable, if not contemptible, policies. They include the pardoning of convicted criminals (most recently, the Honduran drug king Juan Orlando Hernandez), the indiscriminate firing of federal employees, the on-and-off again tariffs, the revenge prosecutions of the President’s alleged enemies, the destruction of the White House East Wing to build a ballroom for 1,000 guests, and blatant conflict of interest and corrupt dealmaking.

Yet three ongoing activities of the Trump administration warrant universal condemnation and criminal accountability: the kidnapping, detention, and deportation of immigrants; the lethal attacks on unproven “drug boats” off the coasts of Venezuela and Columbia; and the continuing complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

1. Immigration. What we’ve been witnessing in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte and now New Orleans over the past several months are violent raids that mimic the thuggish kidnappings common in brutal dictatorships. Masked men (and women) who refuse to identify themselves or their agencies alight from tinted glass SUVs to hunt down and forcibly arrest men, women and children who appear to be immigrants. Some wear military garb. Some carry guns. And at in one recent incident an attack dog was used to maul a captured man.

Legal residents and U.S. citizens are often cuffed and hauled away along with the undocumented. In the worst cases, doors are battered down and car windows smashed, parents are torn away from their children, and wives lose the family breadwinner. Those who try to escape risk being gunned down. Those left in the neighborhood are terrorized; too fearful to shop, walk outdoors or send their kids to school. In Minnesota, immigrants are especially fearful since President Trump described the whole Somali community as “garbage.”  He singled out Somali American Congresswoman Ilhan Omar as “garbage,” someone who should go back to her home country.

Those jailed in one or more “detention centers” complain of inhumane conditions: meager and spoiled food, overcrowding, and unsanitary facilities. Many of the “disappeared” have been unreachable by their attorneys and families. Without due process of law, many of the bound and shackled are deported.  They are either flown back to their home country, or to a third country where they have no ethnic or language affiliation and where their fate is unknown.  Some have told reporters that they are ill-fed and often tortured by their captors in the recipient country. How many immigrants and their families have suffered at the hands of America’s Homeland Security Agency and its ICE functionaries?

2. Venezuela. More than 80 people have died in the recent bombings of speedboats in international waters near Venezuela and off the coast of Colombia. The administration claims to be engaged in a “war on drugs” and thus within its legal rights to conduct the bombings, However, such a declaration of war to justify that aggression is farfetched, especially when there is no evidence that the boats were carrying drugs or that Venezuela was threatening  military action against the U.S. forces. What the U.S. has done in each of the killings is simply murder.

A closed Congressional hearing on December 4 addressed the bombing of September 2, which killed two boat survivors clinging to the destroyed vessel in a second strike. An outstanding question is who ordered the second strike.  Was it a decorated Navy admiral or was it the Secretary of War? Will there be accountability for America’s 80+ murders?

If the President’s bombing program was really intended to stop drugs from coming into the U.S., why did the President, just days ago, pardon a convicted drug dealer  (Hernandez) serving a 45-year sentence in the U.S.? The recent attacks on Venezuelan boatmen represent ruthless “gunboat diplomacy” and a first step toward real war on Venezuela and possible regime change. They show utter disregard for human life.

3. Gaza, Since the Trump peace plan went into effect on October 10, both Gaza and the West Bank remain killing fields. According to the Gaza Health Ministry and other authorities, over 360 Palestinians have been killed after the so-called ceasefire began. The overall death toll from October 2023 now exceeds 70,000, with more than 170,000 injured.

While Trump has taken charge of the current peace process, with his 20-point plan, his actions bespeak war. He continues to follow Biden’s policies of appeasing Netanyahu and supplying him with all the lethal arms he wants. Trump closes his eyes to Israel’s daily breaches of the ceasefire agreement, bombings of civilians, and limiting the imports of food and medical supplies. He has not opposed the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the IDF’s takeover of more than half of the Gaza Strip The Trump peace plan can now be seen for what it is: a trick to secure the return of the Israeli hostages, while the genocide continues at a slightly slower pace.

In its cruel immigration policies, murderous boat attacks on the high seas, and continuing complicity with the Gaza genocide, America under Trump has distanced itself from the rule of law, human rights and basic morality.

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