Trump’s mass deportation effort is a study in cruelty | Editorial

There are horrific stains on American history that never go away.

The slaughter of Native Americans, the original sin of slavery, and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II are among the worst atrocities perpetrated against people in the United States.

When historians document the untold horrors of Donald Trump’s time in office, the roundup, detention, and deportation of immigrants will join the list of shame.

Trump — who is already ranked the worst president in U.S. history — will be remembered as the cruelest to ever sit in the Oval Office.

And perhaps the most un-American.

The plan to use a South Jersey military base as a deportation center for undocumented immigrants is the latest sad chapter in Trump’s war on migrants. To be clear, regardless of what the administration has claimed, most detainees do not have criminal records.

Turning the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst into the so-called Garden State Gulag is a needless dishonor.

It will go down in infamy along with the detention center erected in the Florida Everglades known as Alligator Alcatraz. The images of Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis, and others smugly touring the holding pen-like cells are repulsive.

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Detainees there have described inhumane conditions that include swarms of mosquitoes, clogged toilets, limited fresh water, intermittent air-conditioning, and fluorescent light that shines all night.

Up to 32 inmates are held in chain-link cages lined with bunk beds and toilets that have no privacy. At least one security guard quit in horror.

Human rights advocates argue that Alligator Alcatraz may run afoul of the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem somehow defended the conditions.

She is one of Trump’s many immigration crackdown enablers, along with Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and border czar Tom Homan.

Their names will forever be etched in the history books of shame along with other enablers, including the Republicans and some Democrats in Congress and the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court who continue to approve Trump’s dubious deportation measures — often without any legal explanation.

Their actions are morally reprehensible.

So are the videos of masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arresting workers at warehouses, farms, and construction sites. No American should feel proud watching ICE raids.

Many American businesses, both big and small, have been impacted by the loss of workers who have been arrested or are afraid to come to work.

Production at a meatpacking facility in Omaha, Neb., dropped by 70% as dozens of workers were arrested.

The owner of a small roofing company in Florida lost one-third of his employees to ICE arrests, even though an attorney said they had work permits.

Immigration raids have forced businesses from California to Philadelphia to close.

Fourteen workers were arrested last week at a food market in Norristown, leaving behind distraught families and a community feeling under siege after multiple ICE raids.

What is all this accomplishing beyond the chaos, cruelty, upheaval, and inhumane treatment of people just trying to get ahead and make a better life?

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This is not the American ideal that many have long admired.

To be sure, many of the workers entered the country illegally. But many have been here for decades and follow the law. They pay taxes, buy homes, raise families, and contribute to the economic vitality of the country.

And many do backbreaking jobs that no one else will.

No one disputes that the U.S. immigration system has been broken for decades. Whether it be a nonexistent pathway to citizenship, a lumbering and bureaucratic work visa system, or an overburdened asylum process, both Republicans and Democrats have failed to address the problems.

However, instead of fixing that broken system, Trump has turned the country into a police state.

Immigrants are being deported without the due process rights guaranteed in the Constitution. Even U.S. citizens have been arrested.

Beyond the human tragedy, deporting millions of immigrants is bad economic policy. It will cost some U.S.-born workers their jobs, reduce production, and increase the costs of goods and services for everyone.

That will just make it harder for average Americans to get ahead.

Trump’s assault on the American dream is about as anti-American as it gets.