Texas Observer readers,
I was flitting about the intersection of Lamar and Rundberg in north Austin, snatching quick interviews in Spanish with the protesters who’d shut down the street. They carried Mexican and Central American flags and signs with messages like, “Stop Deportations, chinga la migra!”
It was a bold, even joyful, demonstration as fear ran through Texas’ capital city. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were in the process of arresting 132 immigrants in the area over a four-day period, including in a parking lot near that intersection, in what was likely retaliation for the local sheriff limiting cooperation with ICE. It was February of 2017, and Donald Trump had been in office less than a month.
I wondered: Is this what the next four, or eight, years will be like? In a way, the answer was yes and, in a way, no. Bluster aside, Trump wound up effecting deportations at a slower clip than his Democratic predecessor. Flashy mass raids like the early Austin one did not become the norm. At the border, however, Trump did devise new shocks to the nation’s conscience, most notably the “zero tolerance” policy in 2018 that chaotically separated families en masse. Profound backlash brushed him back from that policy, but he soon found ways to bottle up refugee families on the Mexican side of the border, isolating their suffering beyond the sphere of concern for most Americans—comparable cruelty, superior PR.
In many ways, Trump has won the policy argument at the border. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have both embraced versions of his bottleneck strategy and hope to choke off asylum access between official ports of entry. But, for the 11 million undocumented already in the country, the distinction between the parties remains bright. Trump’s supporters proudly display matching signs that demand “Mass Deportation Now!” His Wormtongue of nativism, Stephen Miller, has spent years now plotting “the most spectacular migration crackdown.” While out of power, Trump designed a return flanked by true believers only—no more waffling bureaucrats.
I write this in October. By the time many of you read it, you should know who won on November 5. For now, I sit with my memories of February 2017, knowing that, should Trump prevail, similar events likely will become the norm.
Typically, I’m supposed to use this space to tell you about the issue in your hands. It’s an excellent one, I assure you, and it marks the Observer’s miraculous 70th year of publication. But I seem to have hit my word count already. Apologies, I find myself a bit preoccupied.
See you on the other side,
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