The full story is here, and it includes multiple other cases of people, including other people who entered at ports of entry (not illegally) who were clearly detained and shipped to El Salvador solely on the basis of their tattoo and nothing more. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

What immigration as an issue area can do, though, that taking over the treasury or decreeing biological sex cannot, is to mobilize the military and unleash militias to enforce their vision.

To enact their radical view immigrants are only one of their targets. One way for a state to eliminate unwanted groups is expulsion. Another related tactic is erasure. Which is exactly what the administration’s attacks on DEI programs and Trans people aim to do

So, what is it the administration is going to do once the military is policing US soil and the militias have been mobilized? We have plenty of indications that their goal is to dismantle democracy and rebuild society according to their white Chiristian nationalist worldview.

Broadcasting raids on social media paints ICE as heroes saving the country against those they’ve demonized. The showmanship is intentional. It signals to militia already operating at the southern border & others like the Proud Boys to join in, e.g.: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024...

So, while the administration can claim they’re just targeting criminals, the way they are carrying out the raids is designed to rally their supporters into widening the net.

The crackdown also signals pro-government militias to join in. Mobilizing pro-government militias is a common strategy of autocracies: militias do the government’s dirty work, wielding violence against a domestic population while giving the government cover to deny that they are responsible.

Once the military is deployed somewhere in the US, it is much easier to deploy them elsewhere, and possibly for other ends.

How does this work? Read those exec orders closely. Why has Stephen Miller called regular migration at the border an invasion? It creates the possibility of invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act, which would allow the federal government to deploy the military on US soil to ‘restore law and order’.

In addition, the way the way the administration is attacking immigrants creates a unique, additional opportunity to consolidate coerce control (the military, policy, militia, etc.) under the executive to enforce their radical agenda

The administration is already inflicting terrible suffering on immigrants, their families and communities