Update from this post about Roger Wang, local business owner and community volunteer who was taken into ICE custody on the way to get his green card: Roger has been detained at a New York State ICE detention facility for over two months; he has a local immigration lawyer assisting him, whom you can help fund through this link.
This sobering update brought to you as part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday series. Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/08/27/one-liner-wednesday-its-official/
Vote for Democracy #44
(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)
Donald Trump decided to declare a crime emergency in Washington, DC and to surge the National Guard into our capital to deal with it.
This is an excuse, not an emergency.
Crime is at its lowest level in thirty years in Washington, DC. There are some higher-crime neighborhoods in the city and problems with youth crime and truancy, so the police could use some extra resources, but the new forces are seldom sent to those areas. Instead, they are largely deployed near national monuments and transit centers, more a show of force than actual crime-fighting.
DT’s rhetoric immediately pivoted from crime to making DC more “clean” and “beautiful” by removing people who are homeless. For the record, people who are homeless are much more likely to be victims of crime than perpetrators. In DC, they are most likely to be older, low-income adults; to be able to afford to live in the city, one needs about $90,000 in income, which is unattainable for many older folks.
Trump is also using this as cover for bringing in personnel from other federal agencies, including ICE. There have been arrests of suspected undocumented people by masked agents without identifying badges, as we have seen in many areas of the country. There are also government and military personnel being assigned duties for which they lack training. For example, FBI agents are being put out on patrol when their expertise is in investigation; for those of you outside the US, the FBI is the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
While DT is claiming that people feel safer and are going out more to eat more often, restaurant and bar owners are complaining that their business is down by 25% or more compared to this time last year. Many people in Washington, joined by others around the country, are protesting the militarization of the city. The presence of troops on the streets feels intimidating to them, making them less likely to go out.
Several Republican governors have mobilized their own National Guard troops to send to Washington. This doesn’t make sense because these troops would not have proper training for the situation. Deployment also takes the troops away from their regular jobs and families and hinders their availability to deal with emergencies or disasters in their home states.
Trump is threatening similar tactics in other cities where the mayors and governors are Democrats, such as New York. However, he is not threatening cities like Nashville, Tennessee, which has a higher rate of violent crime and murders than Washington. Tennessee has a Republican governor and local elections in Nashville are officially non-partisan, although the current mayor is affiliated with the Democratic party.
Because Washington, DC is not part of a state and is the federal capital, the president has somewhat more leeway legally to call in troops. It would be more difficult to use this tactic in other cities, although Los Angeles shows that Trump can manufacture an “emergency” even when there isn’t one. The fear is that Trump will militarize cities where the electorate is heavily Democratic in order to suppress the vote in the midterm elections next year. This falls in line with Trump’s requests for Republican-led states like Texas to redistrict to try to increase the number of Republican-leaning districts in their states to keep from losing their Congressional majorities in the face of the unpopularity of their policies and actions. It also goes along with Trump’s vilification of vote-by-mail, which he perceives as favoring Democrats.
I don’t know if the lawsuits, protests, and possible legislative intervention will be enough to get the military off the streets of American cities or not. It seems that these deployments violate the Posse Comitatus Act. There is a really good explainer about Posse Comitatus here which elucidates what it says and ways it is sometimes circumvented.
If you are in the United States and worried about this issue, you can contact your Congressional representatives and let them know. Trump is only supposed to have a military presence in DC for 30 days unless Congress grants an extension, so you can urge them to vote no and encourage their colleagues to join them. You can join a local protest in solidarity with Washington residents. It also helps to be aware of the scope of Trump’s ignoring or twisting of facts and the law to suit his purposes.
Facts still exist. Make sure you are following the facts and not lies.
Vote for Democracy #43
(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)
There are so many horrors happening every day in the United States under the Trump regime that it’s difficult to write posts because I feel like I’m not able to do justice to the topic when there are so many illegal, immoral, unconstitutional, and/or unconscionable actions and statements perpetrated in an ongoing basis.
Today, though, I decided to lift up the threats to immigrants and refugees beginning with a local story. Roger Wang, the owner of a local Chinese restaurant who fled political persecution in China, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as he arrived for his green card hearing. For those who may not be familiar, a green card is a document that means an immigrant can live and work permanently in the US. Roger had been in the legal process for twelve years and had fulfilled all the requirements that ICE set out to earn his green card, but he was arrested anyway. There is a fundraiser for legal costs and to try to offset the losses to his business. As I write this, I haven’t heard any updates about where Roger is and when or whether he might be able to be released.
Stories like Roger’s are being repeated around the country. Immigrants are being detained by ICE, even when they do have legal status. The Trump administration has shamefully rescinded the legal status of many refugees, including those who served alongside the US in Afghanistan, and who face danger if they return to their home countries. Government agents, sometimes without identifying insignia and with their faces covered, have snatched people from their workplaces, cars, or even the streets and detained them. Sometimes, people with citizenship are detained, too. Appallingly, agents have injured people they are taking into custody They also have taken parents away, leaving their young children behind; sometimes, they take the children into custody, too, and have deported them with their parent, even if the children are United States citizens. Trump tried to take away birthright citizenship from children if both of their parents are undocumented, but this order is on hold while the courts hear arguments about it, although the 14th Amendment, Section 1 is very clear that being born in the United States confers citizenship.
It’s become more difficult to travel into the United States, even for people who are citizens or have permanent status. This month, Wilmer Chavarria, the school superintendent in Winooski, Vermont and a naturalized citizen originally from Central America, was questioned for five hours at the Houston airport as he returned from visiting family in Nicaragua. This risk causes a chilling effect on international travel for both US citizens and for tourists from other countries, especially those who aren’t White, as people of color are disproportionately subjected to being hassled by government border agents. Some countries are warning against travel to the US and tourism is down significantly. This is especially true for Canadians, due to Trump’s threats to their sovereignty and damage to their economy. This is particularly sad because Canada has been such a good neighbor for so long; my spouse B has Canadian ancestry with one of his great-grandfathers immigrating to the US in the late-19th century.
The majority of Americans are upset about the cruelty and disregard for US and international law that the Trump administration is exhibiting. They have sent people to detention camps and dangerous foreign countries and prisons without hearings or formal charges. They have disrespected judges and skirted/defied court orders when cases are brought. Many people, including lawyers, local/state government officials, faith leaders, charitable organizations, schools, and local community members are doing all they can to speak up for the rights of our immigrant neighbors, but it’s difficult when unidentified federal officials snatch people without notice and take them to undisclosed locations, sometimes even deporting them to their country of origin or an unrelated country before their families or lawyers can speak to them.
It’s part of the authoritarian nightmare we are living.
We will keep speaking out and doing what we can, despite the grim reality.
I don’t know how long it will take but we have to get our democracy back on track and always, always, always respect human rights.
“Rosa Parks inspired me to find a way to get in the way, to get in trouble… good trouble, necessary trouble.”
~~~ Representative John Lewis (1940-2020)
Tomorrow, on the fifth anniversary of John Lewis’s death, people are coming together to cause “good trouble” on behalf of freedom, love, and community. For more information and to find an event, please visit https://goodtroubleliveson.org/.
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/07/16/one-liner-wednesday-did-i-mispronounce-it/
Vote for Democracy #42
(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)
Today is July 4th, observed in the United States as Independence Day, commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
The Declaration of Independence is a fundamental document for the United States and a copy of it currently hangs in the president’s Oval Office.
Unfortunately, Donald Trump does not seem to know what it says.
In an interview with Terry Moran two months ago, he answered a question about what the Declaration of Independence means to him by saying, “Well it means exactly what it says, it’s a declaration, it’s a declaration of unity and love and respect and it means a lot and it’s something very special to our country.”
While Trump is correct that the Declaration of Independence means a lot and is very special, he totally mischaracterizes its meaning and purpose.
The Continental Congress was declaring their freedom from Great Britain and its king, whose tyrannical actions they enumerate.
It is horrifying that the current president and administration are perpetrating tyrannical actions now, some of which reflect those in the Declaration and some additional ones.
It makes this 249th anniversary a somber one but also a challenge to all of us to speak up for our founding principles and the rule of law, for a government that “promote(s) the general welfare” as spelled out in the Preamble to our Constitution. This struggle needs to be carried out in justice and non-violence and progress may be slow, but, I hope, that our 250th anniversary next year will see us making progress toward realizing our democratic ideals rather than retreating further toward autocracy.
The Declaration declares that all are equal and endowed “with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
May our 250th Independence Day be with a government that recognizes the civil and human rights of all people so that we can truly celebrate our democracy on July 4th, 2026.
To any member of the US Congress voting to cut health and food assistance to their constituents in order to give huge, permanent tax cuts and subsidies to the very wealthy, including fossil fuel companies: You can expect that your voters will choose a candidate in the next election who will represent their interests, not those of millionaires and billionaires who only care about their own riches and not the common good or the planet.
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/07/02/one-liner-wednesday-take-me-out/
Vote for Democracy #41
(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)
I’m not able to write much these days for various reasons, but wanted to express my deep sorrow at the immense damage that Donald Trump and his administration are inflicting both in the US and around the world.
While I’m trying to do my (infinitesimal) part in bringing our country back to decency, I am comforted knowing that millions of others are doing their part, too.
Still, the sorrow remains for the lives lost and the damage done already and for those who will continue to be affected in the future, even after the United States government returns to sanity, decency, and striving for the ideals spelled out in our Constitution and laws.
Vote for Democracy #40
(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)
Conditions in the United States are deteriorating in terms of the legal rights of individuals and the rule of law.
The most obvious examples right now are in the state of California. As the Trump administration escalates its deportation campaign, it is arresting people as they appear for scheduled meetings regarding their immigration status, at workplaces, and, sometimes, grabbing them out of cars or on the street. The agents doing these things are often masked and not wearing identifying badges, making it look as though they are criminal kidnappers. It’s terrifying for the immigrant community and for mixed-status families where some members are US citizens and others are not. It’s also heart-breaking that Trump has rescinded the legal status of hundreds of thousands of people who are refugees or who had been on temporary protected status.
While these things are happening throughout the country, there had been a concentration of workplace raids in Los Angeles, resulting in demonstrations at a facility where it seems that arrested migrants were being held without the ability to contact their families. A small number of protesters clashed with police, resulting in some arrests. Even though, the protests were confined to a small area of the city and were being handled by the Los Angeles police, Trump signed an order saying he could take over control of the National Guard, even though governors are in charge of National Guard deployments in their states, and could use federal troops within the United States, which is forbidden except in circumstances such as armed insurrection.
Trump ordered 2,000 California National Guard troops and 700 US Marines to Los Angeles, adding almost 3,000 National Guard troops a few days later. Governor Gavin Newsom sued to return the National Guard to his control, and, last night, Senior District Judge Charles R. Breyer ruled that Trump’s move was illegal. Unfortunately, the Trump Justice Department immediately appealed and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has put a stay on the order until they can hear the case on Tuesday.
This is scary for several reasons. While the Trump administration is using this first in California, the executive order applies everywhere in the country, so Trump could call out the military anywhere in the US in the meantime. While these federalized National Guard or other troops are supposed to only act in a support role to protect federal property and personnel, they have already been shown to detain people while waiting for police to arrive to make arrests. On Saturday, Trump has scheduled a large military parade in Washington, DC, ostensibly to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the formation of the Army although June 14th is also his 79th birthday (and Flag Day). In reaction to this show of force by the President, there are about 2,000 protests being organized throughout the country – and even in a few international locations – as No Kings Day, also termed as No Tyrants Day in places that do have a monarch. The flagship protest is in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; there is no event planned for Washington, DC in order to steer clear of Trump’s military parade. The No Kings Day events are peaceful marches and rallies, but I am afraid that Trump will send troops or federalized National Guard after protesters, especially in big, majority-Democratic cities.
Tensions are ratcheted even higher because, yesterday, California Senator Alex Padilla was detained while trying to ask a question at a press conference that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was giving at a federal building in Los Angeles. Sen. Padilla was forced from the room onto the floor and handcuffed, even though he announced that he was a senator and was accompanied by an FBI agent and security guard. If that can happen to a United States senator, what could happen to someone who is an immigrant or vulnerable or a member of a minority group?
While my health prevents me from attending in person, I offer my support to all those who will be at the No Kings protests tomorrow. I’m praying for their safety and hoping that police and other authorities have the good sense to honor the attendees as they exercise their First Amendment rights of free speech, freedom to peaceably assemble, and freedom to petition the government.
I hope that the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court will uphold Judge Breyer’s ruling in the coming days and that the Trump administration will abide by it. We must not militarize the country and disregard our Constitutional rights. The Republicans in Congress need to wake up and honor their oaths and demand resignations or impeach any officials who are breaking the law and undermining our democracy.
In less than a month, we will observe the 249th anniversary of the United States. We must do it as a free people with our full rights intact.
Saturday, June 14, 2025 is No Kings Day in the United States with over 1,800 events planned across the country; you can search locations here.
(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/06/11/one-liner-wednesday-better/
“…the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.”
~~~ US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1938
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/05/28/one-liner-wednesday-best-i-can-do/
Joanne Corey 