A year-and-a-half into Donald Trump's presidency, it's become quite clear that the anti-immigrant animus he exhibited on the campaign trail, and which compelled so much enthusiasm from white voters of all income levels, is also the guiding philosophy of his presidency. Kicking out or detaining as many immigrants as possible, or at least the ones perceived as nonwhite, has arguably been the top priority of the Trump White House. That has resulted in escalated deportation, the now-notorious family separation policy meant to intimidate people out of seeking legal asylum, and the ending of legal status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from what the president has called "shithole countries," such as Honduras or Haiti.
Now comes a troubling new development that threatens to get buried under all the Brett Kavanaugh pageantry: The Trump administration is reportedly shaking the branches to come up with a legal pretext to strip citizenship from people it perceives as not white enough to belong in the United States. This specific strategy relies on redefining certain immigrants as "criminals," but in reality, this move is more about testing the boundaries to see how many people with current legal status can be deported without pushback. If it works, the administration will almost certainly start testing more boundaries and looking for other avenues to remove more people, conceivably including U.S. citizens.
On Monday, the Miami Herald reported on the case of Norma Borgono, a 63-year-old naturalized citizen who immigrated from Peru in 1989. Borgono got in legal trouble in the past because she had processed paperwork for an employer who was orchestrating a white-collar fraud scheme. Borgono never profited from her role, cooperated with law enforcement to put her boss away, has completed her sentence and paid off her restitution. Now the Trump administration is using this incident to strip Borgono's citizenship and deport her to Peru, claiming she lied about criminal activity on her citizenship application, which was processed before the fraud case was discovered.
This is the shell game the administration intends to play in order to demonize immigrants from undesirable countries. Trump uses his public rallies and Twitter posts to push the idea that he's fighting violent gangsters, but in fact, the specter of crime is being invoked as a way to target people like Borgono, who committed a minor, nonviolent offense and has fully paid her debt to society. Her case feels like a test: How far can they go in characterizing someone as a "criminal"? The almost certain end goal of this campaign is a broad enough definition that almost any immigrant will qualify.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is using the excuse that Borgono didn't disclose criminal activity on her citizenship application -- criminal activity that had not been detected at the time, and that she quite plausibly did not know was illegal. No doubt the administration will assure the public that no one needs to worry, so long as they haven't committed any crimes. But people should worry, because the definition of "crime" being used by DHS is deliberately broad enough that it could, in theory, be used as cover to deport nearly everyone who has ever immigrated to the U.S.
After all, virtually everyone has broken the law at some point in their lives. Speeding violations, marijuana possession, public intoxication, rolling through a stop sign: All of these are legal violations and could be used to characterize a person as a "criminal." If the administration manages to get Borgono denaturalized over a minor offense for which she has made full amends, it will continue twisting the definition to figure out how far they can go.
We already see how this works with border detentions, now that the "zero tolerance" policy is in place. Crossing the border at a place that's not an authorized port of entry is not any reasonable person's idea of a crime. It's a misdemeanor of the same level, legally speaking, as using Smokey the Bear's likeness without permission. It's considered less criminal than purchasing fireworks illegally or possessing a small amount of marijuana. It's something, by the way, that U.S. citizens do all the time, without getting in trouble. I've walked back and forth over the Rio Grande a number of times in my life; as with going five miles over the posted speed limit, it's something law enforcement usually ignores because it's not "criminal" by any normal or rational definition of the term.
Now everyone who crosses the border illegally is being locked up as a criminal suspect. Beyond that, Trump isn't just collapsing the distinction between minor crimes and major ones or between people who have paid their debt to society and those who have not. He's also handing out pardons to unrepentant conservative icons who've broken the law, like Joe Arpaio, Scooter Libby and Dinesh D'Souza. Taken together, his actions send a strong message that being a "criminal" isn't about what you actually do, but who you are. Specifically, Trump is signaling that immigrants from south of the border are seen, categorically, as criminals by nature.
It's tempting to believe that there's a limit to how far Trump and his anti-immigrant allies can take this and that they will be restrained by the law from deporting as many people as they like. But that's dangerous thinking. The constant boundary-testing from this administration shows that it has little interest in obeying existing law or conforming to existing norms but wants to find out exactly what it can get away with. Every time Trump and his minions don't get significant pushback, they'll go a little further, expanding the circle of "criminals" subject to deportation.
Only one thing will bring an end to this pattern: Removing Donald Trump from power. Until then, the net will get wider and wider and the excuses for redefining legal immigrants as dangerous and undesirable criminals will get thinner and thinner, until they simply aren't necessary anymore.
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