Just hours following President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, controversial legislation began a digital cascade from D.C., demanding attention from onlookers — particularly immigrants — stunned by today’s political reality. After a controversial three weeks into Trump’s presidential term, BVN students explored the repercussions of his recent legislature in a time of severe cultural and ideological disunity.
During his time in office, Trump has initiated efforts to assemble a “nationwide deportation machine,” ordering Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to raid homes, schools, hospitals and places of worship to detain and deport undocumented immigrants. He has additionally refused entrance to thousands of previously cleared refugees and begun the expulsion of approximately a million immigrants to whom former President Joe Biden had granted temporary entry. Trump is currently attempting to eradicate specific relief programs and Visa categories, refuse documentation to potential citizens and sever programs that enable temporary residency for people from insecure countries, according to The Washington Post and the New York Times.
Sophomore Soren Petrikin asserted that Trump’s plans reflect an attempt at psychological warfare.
“I think Trump could be trying to use deportations as a political tactic to gain leverage over other territories,” Petrikin said. “When Colombia refused to accept immigrants that Trump tried sending back, he threatened to levy sanctions. He wasn’t able to act on those threats, but it was the fear he inspired that counted.”
She stated that this intimidation likens Trump to colonizing rulers from centuries past.
“His goal for domination is [also] clear with Greenland and Panama. Trump seems to be returning us to the very beginning of imperialism where complete control from afar through fear was commonplace,” Petrikin said.
Sophomore and Singaporean immigrant Harshil Sunkara emphasized the anxiety induced by the administration’s efforts.
“Politicians are allowing people to be taken from places of refuge, which just shows how little respect our government has for foreigners,” he said. “ICE raids are stripping back the already minimal security that immigrants have in this country and creating a motivation for foreigners to not move here.”
Sunkara additionally noted the anxiety felt by Americans who have forged lasting relationships with foreign-born members of society.
“Even American citizens who aren’t in danger of deportation — which is most people — probably have connections to immigrants and now have to live with the fact that people they care about could be taken away from them at any moment,” he said.
Petrikin also referenced the emotional facets of deportation efforts, claiming that the country’s political rhetoric discourages empathy for the disadvantaged.
“I’m personally scared for the future of diversity in America. Politicians are so quick to dehumanize immigrants and claim that they’re trying to steal jobs or are pouring in from mental institutions, which is all false,” Petrikin said. “The immigrants that our officials are now calling subhuman are the same exact people who made this country the land of opportunity and have helped it thrive for so long. Our government trying to erase their presence is something to be ashamed of.”
In this vein, Sunkara noted that the possibility of deportation is only one of many difficulties endured by ethnic communities in America.
“Because of the tense relations between America and certain Asian countries, proper documentation was already hard enough for my family and I to get after immigrating. Even now, it isn’t hard for me or anyone in my family to be deported, even though we’re here legally,” Sunkara said. “If I were dismissed from school or one of my parents were fired from work, we’d be seen as [lesser] members of the community, and it could be over for us. This distances immigrants from each other because we’re all so busy working hard to avoid any kind of negative attention that we can’t unite. Our constant worry keeps us separated.”
Sunkara also asserted that birthright citizenship — an American privilege that many now be revoked under the Trump administration — is one of the few legislative footholds provided to immigrants.
“I think in certain societies and governments, service-based citizenship can work better than birthright citizenship, but only because those countries have a different cultural structure,” Sunkara said. “Americans have such a strong sense of nationalism that taking away birthright citizenship means taking away the immediate belonging that first-generation immigrants work their whole lives to give to their children. How many generations does a foreign family have to spend in America to actually belong?”
Petrikin recognized that this kind of nationalism blinds Americans to the ideas of their leaders.
“Because this country was built to be so cohesive, unified, and solitary, it makes sense that lots of people choose to adopt an us-versus-them mentality and reject anything that seems foreign or new,” she said. “But many of the immigrants . . . coming into America from the southern border are in need of serious help. They look to our country as the beacon of democracy that we once advertised it as. These disadvantaged [people] can’t be let in without proper legal processing, but they also shouldn’t be immediately turned away when we used to call it our mission to help them.”
Though Sunkara agreed that America has no constructive choice but to recognize its foundational beliefs, he also emphasized the decreasing citizen initiative that hinders this.
“The people seem to be losing power in this country, and it doesn’t matter how much we vote to combat this if the things we want to see realized aren’t even on the ballot. The politicians praising the strength of the individual are the same ones taking that strength away,” Sunkara said. “We should look to our government with hope, and I wish I could say I do.”
