“Then They Came for Me”: Trump’s Rule by Fear Continues

Even before he was elected, Donald Trump has always been very vocal about his anti-immigrant rhetoric, but since the start of his second term in 2024, his policies and opinions have escalated to a whole new level. Recently, we’ve seen people being detained and threatened with deportation because of their involvement in the Israel-Palestine conflict, despite their legal status as green card holders or containing visas.

One of the more noticeable examples of this is the story of Dr. Rasha Alawieh. She’s a professor at Brown University, yet was recently denied entry into the country and deported to Lebanon because she attended Hezbollah’s leader’s funeral. Dr. Alawieh had a legal H-1b visa, but according to USCIS, “A visa is a privilege not a right, glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa assurance to be denied”. This follows the clear pattern of unconstitutional decisions we’ve seen since President Trump was put in office, as the idea of someone being denied the right to enter the country in which they work and live because of their opinions on an issue is punishing someone for their opinions, which is fundamentally against the First Amendment.

Another example of this presented itself in Mahmoud Khalil. He is a Colombia graduate, and a very vocal activist for the Palestinian plight. Khalil is a green card holder with a fiance who is expecting a child, so when he was arrested it left many in shock not to mention devastated his family. This is another example of someone being arrested because they are a threat to US foreign policy, setting a dangerous precedent in the future. These incidents would be far less concerning if they were isolated, as compared to the large amounts of failures on the behalf of the Trump administration, two false arrests are a small issue. The problem with these arrests lies in the precedent they set, as a president who can deport people based on their political beliefs decreased the odds of any non-citizen residents speaking out against President Trump.

Even still, this issue may still seem minor and low scale, but it’s important to realize how these actions go against the core values of the United States and the danger these choices could lead to in the future. It’s seemingly obvious that these two arrests did not stem from a lack of documentation, as Dr. Alewieh was deported despite showing proof of her visa, and Mahmoud Khalil was documented asking his wife to “go get my green card” as he was being arrested. Instead, it seems these arrests were made in an attempt to lower the support of Palestinians in the United States. The issue now becomes that Trump is now able to deport people on a whim because of their political opinions, which moves America one step closer to a dictatorship. In fact, the United States, a country which was established on morals of freedom and equality, has now been placed on the human rights index, which is a list of countries believed to not provide basic human rights to their citizens.

Since the start of Trump’s term, he’s been attempting to silence all forms of groups that may challenge his decisions. First, he went after journalists, preventing various journalist teams from asking questions during press conferences, essentially shutting off direct questions that address his failed policies. Then he went after law firms, putting executive orders in place that took away law firms' high-level clearance on political issues, and bullied two firms into deals that heavily favored him. Then he went after colleges, threatening to take away funding from Colombia if they kept speaking out against what was happening on their campus. He is now going after immigrants by deporting activists and professors for what they believe, and we’re left to wonder who his next target is going to be.