Donald Trump’s Lone Achievement In 100 Days – Criminalizing Immigrants!

Bill Johnson, of Staten Island, protests outside Trump Tower as NYC prepares for first return of US President Donald Trump to the city after taking office. Thousands are expected to protest the Presidents return in NYC, on May 4, 2017. (Photo by Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

By Felicia J. Persaud

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. May 5, 2017: It feels like eons since Donald Trump was named President of the United States, but sadly it’s only been 100 days. And alas the only achievement Trump can point to is his agenda to criminalize all immigrants and sow seeds of division and hate. What a F-ailure!

Not only has Trump ordered ramped up deportation of documented and undocumented criminal immigrants, but his goon squad executing the order, aka agents at the U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), have gone to great lengths – empowered by The Donald’s new orders – to profile and nab immigrants whose only crime has been living in the country without legal status.

They hang out at court houses, outside immigrant focused public events and at street corners in immigrant populated areas to profile, sow terror and fear and rip families apart. Even those protected under the Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals program, or (DACA), which Trump vowed would be protected, are being arrested and deported.

This comes as the Trump administration alarmed even U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts as it sought to go after the citizenship of New Americans by criminalizing them years later.

The case involves a deported ethnic Serb immigrant named Divna Maslenjak who was stripped of her U.S. citizenship because the government claimed she falsely stated her husband had not served in the Bosnian Serb army in the 1990s after Yugoslavia’s collapse.

Maslenjak is trying to regain her U.S. citizenship and the case is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. U.S. Justice Department lawyer, Robert Parker, has shocked the justices by stating that the government could strip citizenship from most immigrant naturalized citizens if it was found later that they told even a trivial lie or omitted any information from their applications.

“Now you say that if I answer that question ‘no,’ 20 years after I was naturalized as a citizen, you can knock on my door and say, ‘Guess what, you’re not an American citizen after all?’” Justice Roberts asked Parker.

“That to me is troublesome to give that extraordinary power, which, essentially, is unlimited power, at least in most cases, to the government,” the Justice added.

It also comes as ICE established Trump’s much touted ‘Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office,’ which the agency said would allow victims of crimes committed at the hands of undocumented immigrants to be able to report these crimes directly.

The reality is that VOICE is another anti-immigrant tool from the Trump administration, meant to stir up fear and hatred against immigrants and create division and strife, while putting immigrants’ lives at risk.

It could let anyone with a grudge be able to call in a tip to the agency’s hotline. But most of all – whatever happened to calling the police or 911 if a crime is committed against you or a family member?

It also begs the question – is the Trump administration claiming law enforcement in cities and states are unable to do their jobs or is it falsely claiming that immigrants are committing more crimes than native-born Americans?

The alternative facts, the inflaming of his base, the criminalizing of immigrants, the harassment at US borders, the ramped up deportation and moves to remove due process and strip even citizenship from US naturalized immigrants, aka – the criminalization of immigrants – is the only result to date of the Donald Trump presidency.

And to his supporters, who expect anything else, think again. Trump is all about Trump and his rich family and friends. He will continue to focus on enriching them and strengthening his brand while scapegoating immigrants like a hunter throwing red meat to a pack of wild wolves.

Because that’s the only art the con-artist-in-chief knows very well!

The writer is CMO at Hard Beat Communications, Inc. which owns the brands: NewsAmericasNow, CaribPRWire and InvestCaribbeanNow.