Papers, please

Imagine if all those thousands of bored, unfriendly TSA screeners at the airports were turned loose to harass folks on the street. That’s sort of how Trump’s deportation plans are shaping up. Instead of you going to them, they’ll be coming to you. Taking off your shoes will no longer suffice. Now they’ll have the power to seriously screw up your life.

Just because they’re hunting undocumented immigrants doesn’t mean they’ll leave everyone else alone. What Trump wants is for people to be detained merely on the basis of accusation. And, no doubt, collaboration. He wants 10,000 new agents devoted to the task, and he wants every local law enforcement agency in the country to help out. He also wants to loosen or bypass due process for those who object to being rounded up.

Nobody wants violent criminals in this country, particularly if they’re here illegally. That’s why these people were already being arrested and deported long before the current president afflicted us. What Trump wants now, essentially, is a national police force going around demanding to see papers. Keeping in mind the corrupt, vindictive Donald Trump we’ve come to know in the past month, does this really sound like he just wants to keep America safe?

He doesn’t. He wants to have America under his stubby thumb. A national police force empowered to harass immigrants won’t stop with immigrants, in the fullness of time. There are always threats in Trumpland. Remember that the threats Trump talks about most are his fellow Americans.