Words & Phrases

Same policy, ‘lower profile’

Donald Trump’s mass deportation operation is hugely unpopular. He was compelled to fire Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and to force Custom and Border Control thug Gregory Bovino into retirement.

Now, we learn that Markwayne Mullin, Noem’s successor, wants “to get the department off the front page of the news.” The new mantra for a mass deportation policy that routinely violates human rights, engages in racial profiling, and kills people is “lower profile.”

The Atlantic reports, “[Immigration Czar Tom] Homan’s tactical shift would give ICE a lower profile while aiming to make it easier for local jurisdictions and their police departments to cooperate on immigration enforcement.” The Wall Street Journal reports on more profile adjustment: “ICE leadership isn’t moving forward, for now, with high-profile operations like the ones it previously conducted in big blue cities like Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis.” Again, Mullin assured the Senate, “My goal in six months is that we’re not the lead story every day.” More profile lowering!

“Mass deportations” are verboten. “Cooperation” is in. Flashy SWAT operations are no good; “small workplace raids” are fine. Angry villain Stephen Miller is tucked away; Mullin, the face of the “softer approach” (not only on immigration but on FEMA), is front and center. What’s next — ads with Care Bears and rainbows instead of White supremacist imagery and scary shock troops?

Before you get lulled into complacency, understand that the Trump regime is not altering its policy one iota. “Although Mullin gives Trump a different face at DHS, his arrival doesn’t change the administration’s overarching goal—enshrined into law last July by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—to remove 1 million people a year from the United States,” The Atlantic reports.

One Republican let on that the regime flunkies “[j]ust have to message it a little bit better,” Politico reported. “White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the administration’s immigration enforcement isn’t changing, and that the president’s ‘highest priority has always been the deportation of illegal alien criminals who endanger American communities.’” But we know the vast number of people detained are not violent criminals. So: nicer words, the same undiluted xenophobia.

The new approach is just as cruel as the old approach. The Times of San Diego reports:

Trump is deporting about four times as many moms of U.S. citizen children per day as Biden did.

Immigration authorities are arresting more of these moms in the first place, but that doesn’t account for all of the surge in deportations. If arrested, they are seldom allowed to return home to their families anymore. About 30% of such arrests under Biden resulted in a deportation. Under Trump, almost 60% resulted in a deportation.

Compared with the Biden administration, Trump officials are detaining many more parents with only minor criminal histories or none at all. Under Trump, more than half of the detained fathers of American citizen kids, and about three-quarters of the mothers, had no criminal convictions in the United States except for traffic- or immigration-related offenses.

In a similar vein, the regime has not slowed its campaign of trickery and deception that turns lawfully present immigrants into undocumented and deportable targets. In 2025 alone, Trump’s Orwellian policies, such as stripping immigrants of Temporary Protected Status, created more than 1.5M undocumented immigrants. The Trump regime has gone after DACA recipients while DHS ambushes unwary immigrants at court and at scheduled immigration interviews.

Moreover, as ProPublica documented, U.S. citizens have been snared as well. “Americans have even been kicked, dragged and detained for days by immigration agents…. [M]ore than 170 U.S. citizens have been detained by immigration agents for some amount of time. That included Americans who have been handcuffed, held at gunpoint or simply prevented from leaving their location.”

Even in Minneapolis, ICE’s menacing presence has not ended. Just a day before No Kings 3, Minnesota Public Radio reported that “the enforcement tone has shifted away from some of the more spectacular arrests and public confrontations to a smaller-scale, more targeted and less visible presence. Although, in the end, they said they’re seeing the same outcome: Immigrants in Minnesota are still being arrested, detained for substantial amounts of time and deported.” The regime might claim ICE’s deployment is down to 150 but “a motion filed in federal court Friday by U.S. Department of Justice attorneys reported that almost 500 agents remain in the state.” Moreover, a recent decision by the 8^th Circuit Court of Appeals made it more difficult for immigrants who have been swept up to challenge their detention.

Finally, under substandard conditions, detainees continue to die. “The number of immigrants in ICE custody has nearly doubled in the last 14 months, and the detention centers have been strained by the surge,” the New York Times reports. As a result, facilities (many run by for-profit companies) have become “places where disease and illness are rampant and detainees are often denied sufficient food, clean drinking water, medications and medical care.” In lawsuits, detainees, doctors, and lawyers have documented those in custody “constantly feeling hungry, delirious and ill from rotten food, and lacking access to medication and medical care.” As a result, many experience “deteriorating mental and physical health.” Since Trump took office, 46 have died.

Put differently, ICE has scaled down measures that traumatize entire cities and create widespread backlash, but for those affected immigrants, as well as their families and loved ones, not much has changed.

By the way, we must not ignore the extent and lasting impact of the community trauma. A UC San Diego’s U.S. Immigration Policy Center study, for example, found that during the surge, of those who had contact with ICE or CBP, “22.9% in Minneapolis and 13.9% in St. Paul said they were physically assaulted. Another 25.7% in Minneapolis and 17.7% in St. Paul said pepper spray, tear gas or another chemical agent was used against them.” In addition, majorities in both cities say their trust in law enforcement has declined, nearly half are less likely to seek law enforcement assistance, “35.7% in Minneapolis and 20.5% in St. Paul missed work because of the operation,” over half of parents in Minneapolis and 45 percent in St. Paul kept their child home out of enforcement fears, while 39.9 percent in Minneapolis and 30.6 percent of people in St. Paul skipped medical treatment because of enforcement fears.

The Trump regime deserves no credit for a supposed “softer” or “lower profile” approach. Until the number of non-violent criminals drops dramatically, substandard detention facilities are closed, racial profiling ends, mass detention stops, children and parents are free from the horror of detention and separation, U.S. citizens are not victimized, and the regime discontinues “gotcha” games designed to entrap people, the only thing that will have changed is the level of hypocrisy. MAGA simply is putting a happy face on the same inhumane, reckless, and counterproductive mass deportation policy.

Democrats must continue to deny ICE and CBP any more money until real, substantive policy changes are made — lest they feed the Trump propaganda machine and further enable immigrants’ suffering.