Protest against ICE in Worcester MA following the kidnapping by ICE and the Worcester Police Department of a woman and her 16-year-old daughter on Eureka Street in Worcester on May 8 (Worcester, MA // May 11, 2025)
by Ashley Rogers
Philadelphia, PA
Trump’s second term brings a renewed assault on the rights of immigrants. The focus this time has been to find and deport undocumented migrants at a scale beyond that of previous administrations. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rolled back protections for undocumented migrants in vulnerable places like hospitals and schools, as well as authorizing additional federal law enforcement agencies like the DEA, ATF, and the U.S. Marshals Service to assist in rounding up migrants.
As workers continue to see little improvement in their wages and cost of living under Trump’s second term, his administration eagerly plays up his attacks on immigrants to appear to be delivering on his promises. Raids in major cities like New York City have been highly publicized. The White House has released slickly produced videos showcasing deportations. Trump’s push has only continued the existing campaign of attacks on immigrants sustained by bipartisan agreement; arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have only fallen since his term began, and the arrest rate sits over 10% below ICE’s arrest rate under the Biden administration. But Trump has attempted to go further in terms of the scope of his attacks and the methods of his violence.
Deportations
Many migrants have been sent back to their countries of origin, but Venezuelan migrants, along with migrants originally from El Salvador, have been sent to El Salvador to be housed in the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), the “mega-prison” built as part of El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele’s “iron fist” crackdowns on gangs in the country. These prisons are notorious for their overcrowding and numerous documented human rights abuses. There is no evidence any prisoner has ever been released from CECOT, and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has stated that the migrants her department has sent to CECOT should remain there “for the rest of their lives.” The Venezuelan migrants sent to El Salvador were labeled gang members by the Trump administration, but no evidence has been offered to prove this, and independent investigations haven’t turned up any connection.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is the most well-known migrant deported to CECOT. A Salvadoran man who escaped to the U.S. in 2011 after facing gang threats, an immigration judge granted Garcia “withholding of removal” status in 2019. This rare alternative to asylum is granted when there is a significant fear that the individual will be harmed if they are forced to return to their home country, and allows them to live and work in the United States. Garcia was living in Maryland with his wife and children when he was seized by DHS and informed that his “immigration status had changed.” He was deported to CECOT days later.
Garcia’s wife filed a lawsuit against the deportation, and the Trump administration admitted that they were aware of the court order allowing him to remain in the U.S., but claimed he was deported because of “an administrative error.” Despite a court order demanding his return, first by a district court judge and later by the Supreme Court itself, the Trump administration has maintained that it lacks jurisdiction to return him. In a White House meeting between Trump and Bukele in April, Bukele stated it was “preposterous” to suggest Garcia should be returned to the U.S. and the Trump administration claimed that the courts “have no authority” to direct him to facilitate Garcia’s release.
The Trump administration turned to baseless accusations of Garcia’s involvement with MS-13, a notorious gang, to justify his deportation. However, with the amount of focus on his case and the legal support he’s gained to fight for his release, Garcia could finally be freed. Yet there’s no way to know how many migrants deported to CECOT by Trump under flimsy justifications will never be freed.
Attacks on Free Speech
Trump is using immigration law to crack down on free speech, revoking visas for hundreds of students over ties to last year’s protests against Israel’s war in Palestine. Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia student who was the lead negotiator for the pro-Palestinian student encampments at the university last year, was detained by ICE and had his permanent resident status revoked. The Trump administration justifies these attacks by characterizing protestors as “anti-Semitic.” These revocations were performed under a provision of an immigration law written during McCarthyism, used to target socialists and other activists.
Trump’s attacks have also targeted union activists. Khalil is a member of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2710. Garcia is a union apprentice. A farmworker union organizer and activist, Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino, who met with politicians in the Washington state capitol to speak about farmworkers’ rights in March, has been detained by ICE. The Communication Workers of America put out a statement against the administration trying to deport 200 union workers at an appliance factory—workers who were in the country legally. A coalition of ten national unions, including the United Electrical Workers, American Postal Workers Union, National Nurses United, and the UAW, released a petition calling for Trump to end his attacks on union immigrant workers.
The Bipartisan Path to Trump
The horrific immigration policy enacted by Trump isn’t identical to that of recent presidents, but the groundwork for his policies was laid over decades. Biden’s attacks on student activists last year—declaring criticism of Israel’s war “anti-Semitic” and sending in militarized police forces to break up student encampments–laid the groundwork for Trump’s attacks on free speech. In addition, what has made Trump’s deportations illegal has primarily been that they’re deportations to countries other than the migrants’ countries of origin. The Biden administration expelled 4.4 million migrants from the U.S., the most of any presidential term since the first term of George W. Bush. And it’s hard not to see the connection between the ICE “detention centers,” pioneered under Obama and expanded under Trump and then Biden, as the foundation for Trump’s use of Guantanamo Bay and CECOT as destinations for deportees.
The family separation policy put in place under the first Trump administration was the brainchild of ICE director Tom Homan, first appointed as associate director by Obama. Trump’s use of additional law enforcement branches to uphold his immigration policy is not unique to his administration either; the Secure Communities program, introduced as a trial run in 14 jurisdictions under Bush, was expanded to over 1,200 jurisdictions by Obama. This program saw information about every person arrested by local police forwarded to the DHS to check their immigration status.
Who Will Stop Trump?
Many politicians, judges, and political commentators have pointed out that Trump’s deportation policy is against the law. But the Trump administration ignored a court ruling that deportation flights to El Salvador needed to be halted immediately; hundreds of migrants have been deported anyway.
Even more worrying, Trump has stated that he doesn’t intend to limit his attacks to just undocumented migrants. Bukele has offered the Trump administration the ability to deport American citizens to CECOT, with Trump stating, “Home-growns are next.” While Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stated this would only apply to violent criminals, Trump suggested that protestors who’ve vandalized Tesla property should be sent to El Salvador as well.
Misplaced hope in the bourgeois legal system to prevent Trump’s attacks has not borne fruit; the Supreme Court ruled against the judge’s order to halt deportation flights and has not reached a final verdict on whether to allow these deportations. The Constitution does not have the power to limit the president and the government on its own; it exists only so far as the government and legal institutions choose to interpret and enforce it. Trump has already demonstrated his willingness to ignore court rulings and has so far faced no repercussions for violating the law.
And even if the law was perfectly enforced, this wouldn’t end Trump’s attacks on immigrants—only bring them into the bounds of what the capitalists consider “acceptable.” The deportations under Bush, Obama, Biden, and Trump’s first term were considered perfectly legal. A legal system set up to attack immigrants and facilitate their deportations is no solution for working people either.
No worker, whether immigrant or native-born, will gain anything from Trump’s attacks on immigrants. Trump is attempting to divide migrant and native-born workers, claiming that migrant workers are somehow responsible for the hardships citizens face. Yet it’s the billionaire backers of Trump, Biden, Obama, Bush, and every other presidential administration who have chipped away our rights, cut our wages, and raised our cost of living for their own profits.
Workers everywhere share a common enemy in the capitalist class, and solidarity between workers of all national origins is needed to fight back. Unions need to move beyond their statements and petitions and start organizing a strike across industries and unions—a general strike.
Independent Socialist Group 