If performative cruelty is the only thing that mattered to you, things are working out great under President Trump. Otherwise, things stink.
Look at Trump’s empty promises. Cruelty is all that matters.
If you voted for President Donald Trump and hoped something good would happen to you, feel free to say: “Oops.” If you voted for him out of a thirst to see immigrants who have committed no crimes suffer and live in fear, then feel free to say: “Yes!”
Because that’s where we are at the start of June 2025. Trump’s promises of a better life for Americans are proving to be empty.
And his promise to round up “millions” of “criminals” and deport them hasn’t materialized, because the claim that there are millions of criminal immigrants in America was a lie in the first place.
Instead, the administration has resorted to grabbing immigrants at courthouses where they’re appearing for hearings – in other words, following the rules – or snatching up and deporting working moms and high school kids.
ICE isn’t just going after criminals. Moms and kids are easy targets.
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official interviewed by the conservative Washington Examiner said Trump adviser Stephen Miller has been demoralizing the agency with unrealistic deportation demands: “Stephen Miller wants everybody arrested. ‘Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?’ ”
So much for going after the “bad guys.”
Meanwhile, an 18-year-old high school junior was recently arrested by ICE agents as he drove with friends to volleyball practice in Milford, Massachusetts.
A school administrator told the Boston Globe the teenager was well-known in the community and had attended Milford Public Schools since kindergarten: “It’s just horrendous. These are babies. They’re kids. I don’t care that they’re 18 – he’s just a kid.”
Communities are watching people they love get rounded up
In the small Pennsylvania town of Honesdale, ICE agents recently raided a pizzeria and detained three employees, rattling the community. Resident Connor Simon told WNEP-TV: “It’s really hard to fathom that the guy making my pizza for 25 years is a gangster and a terrorist, and the person who shows up in an unmarked car wearing a mask and body armor comes to take him away is somehow the good guy.”
And the recent ICE arrest in Kennett, Missouri, of a mother – an immigrant from Hong Kong – has led residents to denounce what happened to the longtime resident who works at a diner.
“I voted for Donald Trump, and so did practically everyone here,” Vanessa Cowart told The New York Times. “But no one voted to deport moms. We were all under the impression we were just getting rid of the gangs, the people who came here in droves.”
These actions by the Trump administration benefit only the most sadistic among us.
But it’s part and parcel of the harm Trump’s MAGA policies have already caused.
Manufacturing down, food expensive and ICE is deporting moms. Happy now, MAGA? | Opinion
If you voted for President Donald Trump and hoped something good would happen to you, feel free to say: ‘Oops.’
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2025/06/03/trump-deportations-construction-spending-down-economy/83995322007
