Much attention has focused on Trump’s first 100 days as president. So many bizarre, illegal, and unconstitutional actions have occurred that one hardly knows where to start.
Topping the list might be the insane import taxes, usually known as tariffs, whose effects will become increasingly felt by the American public as the cost and availability consequences set in.
Then we have had the attacks on allied nations and the cozying up to dictators. And don’t forget the gutting of essential government operations like nuclear security, weather forecasting, Social Security, and much more.
And of course, attacks on the rule of law are a major feature of the Trump administration.
However, my nomination, for the actions that indicate the direction of the country under Trump is those of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
One incident stands out. In April, federal immigration agents traumatized a family in Oklahoma City by busting into their home in the middle of the night, searching the home, and seizing the family’s belongings as they were executing a search warrant issued for someone else.
At first, the mother didn’t know who they were. “It was dark. All the lights were off,” she said. “My initial thought was we were being robbed – that my daughters, being females, were being kidnapped.”
The federal agents had the correct address, but they had the wrong family. When they identified themselves as federal immigration agents, the mother said she cried out, “We’re citizens. That’s what I kept saying. We’re citizens,” the woman told a local television station. “They were very dismissive, very rough, very careless.”
Twenty armed agents busted through the door of the home in the middle of the night. The men who entered her home identified themselves as federal agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
However, the Office of the U.S. Marshals Service later indicated that none of their agents were involved in the raid. The FBI referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security (apparently without denying the FBI was involved).
I kept pleading. I kept telling them we weren’t criminals. They were treating us like criminals. We were here by ourselves. We didn’t do anything,” the mother added.
She said the agents ordered her and her three daughters to step outside even though it was raining, and they barely had time to put on clothes.
“They wanted me to change in front of all of them, in between all of them,” she said. “My husband has not even seen my daughter in her undergarments – her own dad, because it’s respectful. You have her out there, a minor, in her underwear,” the woman reported.
Although none of the family members were the subjects of the warrant, the federal agents confiscated their belongings and took their phones, laptops, and all their cash savings as “evidence.”
Before the agents left, the mother asked when the family could get their belongings back, and they said it could be days or even months. The family has no idea where to go to get their belongings and money. The mother said the agents would not leave a business card, and she does not know whom to contact to retrieve her family’s possessions.
U.S. Representative Becca Balint (D-VT) addressed the April 24 raid in a Congressional committee meeting, “This is what we have created here. This is Trump’s America,” Balint said. “These were citizens who were treated like this … What happened to that family, once again, of American citizens in Oklahoma City should scare the hell out of all of us, and we should not be using this committee to find more money to pump into ICE so that these things can happen.”
Balint continued. “This family is all of us … “What happened to that family, once again, of American citizens in Oklahoma City should scare the hell out of all of us, and we should not be using this committee to find more money to pump into ICE so that these things can happen,”
Balint continued. “This family is all of us.”
