The Trump Administration Is Escalating an Immigration Crisis It Promised To Resolve

The border is no longer the focus. Now, the White House wants you to believe that the crisis extends to nail salons, hardware stores, farms, and restaurants across the country.

During last year's presidential campaign, Donald Trump and his allies promised to take swift action to resolve what they termed the "Biden border crisis"—the flow of asylum-seeking migrants across America's southern border.

Whether or not you agree with the premise that the border was a "crisis" under President Joe Biden, there's pretty compelling evidence that many Americans did. Polling shows that Trump's focus on the border and his promise to stop the flow of immigrants was a major factor in convincing voters to give him another try at the presidency.

Four months after Trump returned to the Oval Office, that crisis appears to be over. The number of migrants crossing the southern border in recent months has been a fraction of what was seen over the past few years—a fact that the Trump administration has touted as evidence of "the most secure border in history." Mission accomplished, right?

But Trump—and his anti-immigrant advisors, like White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller—are still in crisis mode. The border is no longer the focus, however. Now, the administration seemingly believes that the crisis extends to nail salons, hardware stores, farms, and restaurants across the country, where undocumented immigrants who are peacefully exchanging labor for dollars are being targeted. Some of the immigrants scooped up in raids this week have already been deported, The Washington Post reports.

In practice, these workplace raids are dystopian. Here's how The Wall Street Journal summarizes what's happening: "Federal agents make warrantless arrests. Masked agents take people into custody without identifying themselves. Plainclothes agents in at least a dozen cities have arrested migrants who showed up to their court hearings. And across the U.S., people suspected of being in the country illegally are disappearing into the federal detention system without notice to families or lawyers, according to attorneys, witnesses and officials."

Under normal circumstances, most Americans would rightly reject the notion that masked and unidentified federal agents should have the power to engage in this sort of behavior, particularly when the immigration cops' targets are trying to earn a living and responsibly showing up for court hearings on their legal status. Isn't that exactly what someone concerned about the rule of law should want to see?

The White House wants Americans to believe this is all part of the same agenda—that rounding up suspected illegal immigrants in communities across the country is merely an extension of its efforts to fix the border crisis and prevent dangerous criminals from entering the country illegally.

Don't buy it. Those are two logically and legally different premises, and Americans who supported the former have no obligation to condone the latter.

This also isn't the final stage in the process, as the list of targets is already expanding from undocumented immigrants to any immigrant from undesirable locales, at least according to some conservative influencers. Want to attend a soccer game? Better carry proof of your citizenship, or risk being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That's not how America is supposed to work.

"The basic framework of Trump's interior enforcement is that it is whimsical and arbitrary," writes David Bier, director of immigration studies for the Cato Institute, in a column for the Los Angeles Times. "It is not about 'merit,' not about public safety threats, not even about people here illegally or about 'noncitizens,' as Trump is seeking to strip U.S. citizenship from people and remove U.S. citizenship for many U.S.-born children."

Distinctions can be lost and context collapses in the face of a crisis, which is perhaps why the Trump administration has moved so swiftly to escalate the chaos in Los Angeles. (And, in fairness, the rioters there are playing right into the White House's hand, and their behavior would be condemnable even if that weren't the case.)

Don't let the hazy smoke from burning Waymos cloud your judgment.

Before accepting the idea that workplace raids are a natural extension of Trump's border policies, Americans should ask themselves whether the men and women working at their local nail salon or scrubbing pots in the backroom of their favorite restaurant realistically constitute a threat to public order. It is one thing for the administration to target criminals and gang members who have done actual harm to people and property. That is not what is currently happening—as Miller's edict demanding more disruptive arrests makes clear.

These workplace raids are not just a new front in the Trump administration's war on immigration. They are a different policy altogether. One that was reportedly ordered from the highest levels of the White House. One that is focused on maximizing immigration-related chaos, rather than reducing it (as Trump said he would do). And one that the administration can gleefully use to justify further escalations of force that will erode the civil liberties of immigrants and American citizens alike.