U.S. President Donald Trump has made “cracking down” on illegal immigration and “securing our border” his primary political aim. He has baselessly blamed immigrants for a range of social ills: taking jobs, causing economic strain, and committing crimes—all stoking fear and outrage. This messaging proved highly effective, with many Americans identifying immigration as the most important issue during the election.
On his first day in office, Trump hit the ground running with 10 executive orders challenging and reforming our immigration system, from rolling back birthright citizenship to expanding military presence at the border, where he ended the right to seek asylum. That was just the start. Each of these moves is concerning and worthy of deeper analysis. But there is a broader story to tell about the stakes—one highlighting that our democracy itself is on the line.
Indeed, a few of these actions—from expanding expedited removal and using the Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds without evidence or trial to revoking visas and legal status for many international students to legitimizing the idea that opposing Trump can be construed as an act of terrorism—are evidence that we are already far down the terrifying slippery slope into fascism. In this deluge we can trace a dark arc bending toward an America where dissent—the mere exercise of First Amendment rights—is punishable by deportation without due process. Let’s take a closer look at this chain of actions.
The message? If even as a legal immigrant, you exercise your first amendment rights but disagree with Trump’s agenda, you may lose your status and be detained without due process.
Typically, expedited removal—deportation without a hearing—has been used against undocumented immigrants arrested within 100 miles of the border and within 14 days of entering the country (unless they are seeking asylum). But on Day 1, the Trump administration vastly expanded its enforcement area to the whole country and all migrants unable to prove they have been in the U.S. for at least two continuous years, including those admitted via parole programs. This huge expansion means many more undocumented immigrants will not be afforded due process—i.e. a hearing with evidence—before being deported.
Moreover, for the first time except in war, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act (1798) to deport and detain hundreds of Venezuelan migrants whom he claimed had gang ties. The act similarly allows for expedited removal so, despite a lack of evidence against most of those arrested, they were still removed from the U.S. and have been detained in a “mega prison” in El Salvador without a hearing. It’s worth noting here that the Trump administration also blatantly defied a judge’s order to turn around the plane to El Salvador. These are clear attempts to supersede legal norms and procedures and make expulsion from the U.S. even easier.
We should already be sounding the alarm. Instead, we’ve slid even further down this awful slippery slope as seen in the detainment of—or visa revocation for—around 800 students in the U.S. Let’s look at the case of Alireza Doroudi, a student at the University of Alabama whose visa was revoked before he was then arrested and detained at a remote facility in Louisiana. Here, the absence of due process is coupled with the abrupt disruption to one’s legal status—blurring the lines between legal and “illegal” immigration.
Unfortunately, many such cases feature a third troubling element: the stifling of free speech. The case of Mahmoud Khalil has rightly received significant attention. Khalil, a U.S. green card holder, was a student leader in Columbia University’s pro-Palestine protests. Without evidence of any criminal act, he was stripped of legal status and detained. Here, the Trump administration yet again stretched the law, this time citing “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States” as the rationale.
The threat? Speaking out in favor of a cause contrary to Trump’s agenda.
The message? If even as a legal immigrant, you exercise your first amendment rights but disagree with Trump’s agenda, you may lose your status and be detained without due process.
We have traced this dark arc: from increasing removals without due process—first by expanding and invoking obscure laws and then by blurring citizenship status—to threatening First Amendment rights by using a person’s speech to deprive them of vital legal protections and ultimately detain and deport them.
And here’s the final step: Trump and his cadre are doing everything they can to expand what speech can be deemed dangerous. Elon Musk has called largely peaceful protests against his company Tesla—including a few acts of vandalism—“wide-scale domestic terrorism.” The increasingly pervasive use of “terrorism” to describe speech critical of Trump’s agenda suggests that the already-dark actions against immigrants will likely be applied even more broadly. On April 14, Trump told El Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele “homegrowns are next” and encouraged him to build five more prisons to house future citizen deportees.
As historian Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny, warns: “If you accept that non-citizens have no right to due process, you are accepting that citizens have no right to due process. All the government has to do is claim that you are not a citizen; without due process you have no chance to prove the contrary.”
The stakes are incredibly high, and the risks are very real, but we cannot be scared into silence. Those of us who are citizens are the most protected. So, it’s up to us to do all in our power to sound the alarm bells before it’s too late.
We can join pro-democracy efforts led by organizations such as Indivisible and the American Civil Liberties Union, support independent journalism that speaks out, and organize in our communities. The famous poem “First they came for…” by German pastor Martin Niemöller reminds us that those of us who still can, must speak out now before no one left to speak out for us.
