In May, an 18-year-old named Marcelo Gomez, who has lived in the U.S. on an expired visa since he was 7, was arrested on his way to a volleyball game in Milford, Mass. During his six days in detention, Marcelo was unable to change his clothes. He slept on a concrete floor and shared a toilet with 35 to 40 other men.
In June, 48-year-old Narcisco Barranco, an undocumented immigrant with no criminal record who was working as a gardener in Santa Ana, Calif., was pinned to the pavement and repeatedly hit in the head by four masked Customs and Border Patrol agents. After a formal request by the Mexican Consulate General in Los Angeles, Barranco received medical attention for his wounds and a heart condition. One of his three sons — all of whom served in the U.S. Marines — rebutted Trump administration claims that Barranco had attempted to assault officers with his weed trimmer, and said that if he had treated someone in this way when he was in uniform, “it would have been a war crime.”
Around the same time, Sayed Naser was detained by ICE agents following a hearing on his Special Immigrant Visa application and placed in an expedited removal facility in San Diego. A civilian interpreter who had worked with U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Naser fled to Brazil after the Taliban had killed his brother and abducted his father during a family wedding. Naser subsequently traveled 6,000 miles to Mexico on foot and was granted parole into the U.S. while seeking asylum.
In May, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem terminated Temporary Protected Status for Afghans, putting 11,000 of them at risk of deportation. If Naser, who does not have a criminal record, fails to pass his “credible threat” interview, which will be conducted over the telephone without his lawyer, he will almost certainly be deported. His wife and children remain in hiding.
A few days ago, Kilmar Abrego Garcia stated in a legal filing that he had been beaten and tortured in the notoriously brutal Salvadoran prison which the Department of Justice deported him to by mistake.
These cases provide compelling evidence that the Trump administration’s detention and deportation polices conflict with the traditions, values and “do unto others” sense of fairness and decency of a nation of immigrants.
Of the 59,000 immigrants now in detention, over 70 percent were arrested in the interior of the U.S., not at or near the border. Forty-seven percent have no criminal convictions; of those who do, the most common crimes are violations of immigration and traffic laws. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has so far apprehended only 6 percent of known immigrant murderers and 11 percent of immigrants convicted of sexual assault.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt — apparently unaware that living in the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant is a civil, not a criminal offense (except for those apprehended while crossing the border) — told reporters that everyone arrested by ICE is a criminal “because they illegally broke our nation’s laws.” In fact, the immigrant population, both documented and undocumented, commit crimes at a lower rate than native-born citizens. In Texas, undocumented immigrants are 47 percent less likely to be convicted of a crime than those who were born here.
Facilities housing detainees are often grotesquely overcrowded. Medication is not always provided, detainees can spend a week between showers, and family members are not always told where their loved ones are. According to Paul Chavez, director at Americans for Immigrant Justice in Florida, “conditions were never great, but this is horrendous.” Between Jan. 1, 2025 and late June, 10 immigrants died while in ICE custody, two of them by suicide, almost three times the rate while Joe Biden was president.
Last week, two detainees were added to the list. One of them, Isidro Perez, was a 75-year-old Cuban immigrant, who came to America 59 years ago and was convicted of possession of a controlled substance in 1984.
Law enforcement officials are required to identify themselves when making an arrest “as soon as it is practical and safe to do so,” indicate their authority to detain the suspect and obey restrictions on searches and seizures. But federal laws don’t stipulate the circumstances under which government officials can wear masks. Although President Trump has called for the immediate arrest of masked protesters, Homeland Security officials defend masks as necessary to protect ICE agents from retaliation.
Critics point out that masks and plain clothes increase the likelihood that suspects will mistake law enforcement officers for criminals and make it more difficult to hold agents accountable for using excessive force. “What other definition of secret police is there,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu asked, “when people are getting snatched off the streets by masked individuals, not being told where they’re going, disappeared until somehow someone finds some information?”
Although Americans continue to support secure borders, a recent poll revealed that 57 percent of them do not approve of Trump’s handling of immigration and ICE tactics.
Perhaps for this reason, Trump has tried to have it both ways on immigration. During his 2024 campaign, he promised to arrest “the worst first.” Last month, Trump declared, “all of them [i.e. “21 million Illegal Aliens”] have to go home, as do countless other Illegals and Criminals, who will turn us into a bankrupt Third World Nation.” Yet Trump also said that employers feared that “our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long-time workers away from them, with their jobs being almost impossible to replace.”
Vowing to “get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA,” Trump indicated he would pause ICE raids on farms, meatpacking plants, hotels and restaurants. But Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of public affairs at DHS, quickly declared, “The president has been incredibly clear. There will be no safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals or purposely try to undermine ICE’s efforts.” It remains unclear at this writing whether Trump will order a pause.
Meanwhile, the number of detainees and deportees keeps growing — as do reports of denials of due process and access to legal representation.
Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-Texas) and five other congressional Republicans have called on the administration to prioritize enforcement: “Every minute that we spend pursuing an individual with a clean record is a minute less that we dedicate to apprehending terrorists or cartel operatives.”
How low do poll numbers have to sink, and how many more employers will have to pressure the White House, before the president decides his approach to immigration is bad policy and bad politics?
Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University.
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