What a difference a few days can make. I departed, along with my brother, from the shores of the United States on January 17, to attend to legal matters in Jamaica. I returned to the States on the 31st. While I was in Jamaica Mr. Trump was sworn in as President on January 20. Not wasting time after his inauguration, he began to sign a flurry of executive orders ostensibly to activate his political promises, which included the promise of mass deportations of illegal immigrants.
We all knew that this was coming for all of the reasons he gave during his political campaign. But a twist on our understanding of what was to come is now evident, seemingly validating an undercurrent of dread-filled rumours: the de facto targets of these deportations appear to be those who do not look white and who speak with an accent, regardless of true legal status.
We ought not to express surprise as even those who are citizens, by birth, can proffer no argument against being deported to anywhere on this earth of this current Administration’s choosing. It is a sobering notion, for example, for my sister-in-law who was born in the United States to African-American parents who have served honourably in the armed forces. She anxiously went about making copies of her birth certificate so that at all times she could have a copy ready to present should she be confronted by immigration law enforcement officials. Indeed, given all the news reports about the current status quo, my brother and I shared similar concerns about our vulnerability to such a fate, as naturalised citizens to say nothing of being black males in historically hostile lands — regardless of the protections understood to be enshrined in the United States Constitution.
Not yet being aware at the time, if my memory serves me correctly, of what my sister-in-law was thinking or was soon to think in respect to making photocopies of her birth certificate, we discussed making photocopies of our U.S. passports to keep on our person, in addition to another piece of identification which mirrors the vitals given in our passports, issued by the same government agency, while we are up and about getting on with our lives on daily, legitimate personal and professional business.
My wife, who is also Jamaican, was a part of our deliberations. She has, already, during her early days in this country, been mistaken by Hispanics as a Hispanic, by her physical appearance alone, although she does not speak a word of Spanish, and would draw the ire of her high school French teacher for slaughtering the language in any efforts made to speak it with her woefully unpracticed tongue.
As time progressed, in very short time, we realised that other legally naturalised immigrants, from what we were seeing online, were already in the process of taking similar steps. While on a visit to pick up clothes at the dry cleaners, recently, a Jamaican lady who works there asked if I had taken such steps, as she already had or that she was planning to make them by making a copy of her naturalisation certificate to keep on her person.
I have lived and I have worked in this country for decades. have never had problems identifying myself. It is possible that I have had more work identification documentation and more government identification cards in the States than when I lived in Jamaica. In fact, without any of those I.Ds, it is not hard for anyone to type my name into many or all of the online demographic search engines and not learn who I am, where and with whom I live, where I use to live, who comprises my extended family, where I work, and what my political status is as a registered voter. My credit reports can also be found, online, for all to see. The Internal Revenue Service (I.R.S.) knows where to find me. My obscurity, therefore — my being “off the grid”, as it were — is but a laughable myth.
My Social Security number can also tell a great deal about me, and can be used at my expense to purchase items. And yet here I am, in the year 2025, talking with my family, with my friends, with my coworkers and with acquaintances about making photocopies of government identification documents in order to provide to law enforcement information about things that they and the rest of America already know about me. They all know who I am. They all know where I live. And, they all have developed a profile on me based upon my patterns of behaviour. How many times have I logged on to the Internet and found websites suggesting certain items or issues that I might be interested in, based upon my previous forays into “the system”.
The issue of illegal immigrants in this country has not only spanned decades, it has also crossed the wide ideological chasms of politics, of all presidential administrations, yet without enduring success. Immigrants — both legal and illegal — have oft been used as scapegoats in explaining the causes for the various social ills in the country, especially in the area of crime, in similar fashion to Black people, although all the statistics on the books were pointing to the overwhelming numbers of the perpetrators being white. And so, what is this current buzz of activity all about? Please, somebody, tell me? Who is trying to fool who? Again, the resources provided in our already stretched social service safety nets are being used, predominantly, by white people. This has been and will continue to be the case, if the current Administration does not put them all into mothballs, no matter how they have tried to place the blame for the abuse of the welfare system squarely upon the shoulders of Black people — native born and otherwise.
Who is fooling who? The gloves are already off. This has nothing to do with illegal immigrants. America knows it, as does the rest of the world. The deportations go well beyond a mere political stunt, just for Mr. Trump, or for the advantage of anyone else who succeeds him, as it was the case with some of his predecessors — among them President Ronald Reagan. This is racism, and this is racial profiling which are culminating into ethnic cleansing. This has been my least favourite essay, simply because I am not saying anything that has not already been written on the subject by more knowledgeable and by more competent authorities. One source defined ethnic cleansing as follows:
“The systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction. Both the definition and charge of ethnic cleansing is often disputed, with some researchers including and others excluding coercive assimilation or mass killings as a means of depopulating an area of a particular group.”
Every country has a right to be concerned about illegal immigration, and for so many different just reasons. Every country has a right to enforce its borders, and the United States of America is no exception to that rule, despite the following words of welcome found at the base of the Statue of Liberty, which is located in New York:
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. ‘Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!’ cries she With silent lips. ‘Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’ “
America can enforce her bonafide immigration laws, and, indeed, America should continue to do so, as any responsible nation ought to. But America does not have to do so at the expense of her high ideals. She does not have to sacrifice her moral leadership on the world stage on the altar of the selfish political expediency of a person exuding every evidence of being of unsound mind at best, erected by the arrogance of the high priests of oligarchy over at the conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, with their ominous chants uttered over the burnt offerings of humanity and of common decency, as they lift the tome of their Project 2025 — their accursed scriptures — as a wave offering to the diabolical.
All of that having been said, what will the next steps be after the mass deportations of immigrants have reached acceptable levels of abatement — whatever measures of cruelty are used in that regard? Perhaps the Trump Administration will then institute pass laws as they were enforced against Blacks and against Asians under the Apartheid regime in South Africa. Perhaps the control of immigrants and of racial and ethnic minorities in America will see something on the order of the Star of David being sewn into the fabric of clothing as was the case among the Jews under Nazi Germany. There would be no need for ghettos, where the Germans had herded the Jews, before the advent of the ovens of the concentration camps, as Black people already occupy those due to systemic racism. Man’s inhumanity to man knows, absolutely, no boundaries, and blind hatred and selfish bigotry comprise a very dark and dismal bottomless pit.
Lord, help us.
