"They’re Just Criminals," and Other Lies Your Family Believes

The myths fueling trump’s deportation agenda are tearing communities apart. Here’s how to confront the racism next door.

"You're in America now, speak American!"

"Why should I have to press 1 for English?"

"You wouldn't have won with those millions of illegals voting!"

"They're takin' our jobs!"

"Go back to yer country!"

"Think about what they did to Laken Riley."

"I don't have a problem if they're here legally."

"I voted for trump to deport all illegals!"

If I had a dollar for every time I've heard someone repeat any of the above resentments, I'd be a millionaire.

Face it: Your family or friends might just be racist.

There's been an unmistakable explosion of hatred across the nation, and it didn't just start at the inauguration of Donald trump. In fact, his very first inauguration, his first electoral win back in 2016, was facilitated by this festering wound of white fear—the fear of being replaced.

It began well before trump descended that golden escalator into a crowd of people whose irrational fear of Mexicans and others of Latin descent was stoked by the hatemonger who declared Mexico was sending murderers and rapists.

It probably even began well before a U.S. Census Bureau report concluded that the U.S. will become a "majority-minority" nation sometime between 2040 and 2050, meaning that no single racial or ethnic group will constitute a majority of the population. Additionally, the white population is projected to fall below 50% by 2042.

The growing “Great Replacement” anxiety from certain corners of the white population began experiencing severe anxiety about this, with even the irreverent cartoon South Park lampooning those fears with characters repeating the phrase with an angry Southern twang, "They took our jobs!"

I remember the complaints about people speaking in their native Spanish tongue instead of speaking "American," or people complaining about the five-second inconvenience of being reminded in a recorded message that they can press a different number for Spanish or English.

When I was growing up, whether it was in the West Bronx off University Avenue or in the heavily populated Dominican neighborhood of Inwood (in Washington Heights), hearing salsa music or my friends speaking Spanish was as normal as hearing birds sing or leaves blowing in the wind.

America, I was told as a young child growing up here, was a glorious melting pot. And it was something that made me proud, especially when I learned that people were coming here from all over because our melting pot was so great.

Never once, growing up in the majestic city of the Statue of Liberty, did it occur to me that diversity was a bad thing. In fact, I felt chills the first time I read the words on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Only the greatest country on Earth would invite tired, poor, wretched masses to live here. Some of them were my neighbors.

Of course, not everyone was fortunate enough to have grown up right in the middle of a magnificent melting pot; most Americans grew up in small towns and cities where it was rare to see a Black or Brown face, despite the fact that TV shows, commercials, and movies were doing everything they could to spread the word that we existed and had a right to be here.

Nevertheless, a steady undercurrent of resentment was growing in America, and the worst of the worst had become adept at plucking that nerve, like an out-of-tune guitar string. And Donald trump was indeed the worst of the worst.

He spat back their fears, real and imagined, at them, scapegoating "illegals" as the people to be loathed and blamed for all of their problems, and anyone who would allow them to enter our great country was to blame. This kind of incendiary rhetoric earned trump praise from those resentful white corners of the country, as they declared, "He tells it like it is... he says what people are afraid to say out loud.

"What they unfortunately missed is that others weren't "afraid" to say it; they just knew the truth was more complicated than trump's bigoted finger-pointing at undocumented immigrants for all that is wrong with America. I'm not saying that all undocumented immigrants are saints, but I can say with confidence that they tend to have lower crime rates than people who were born here.

I can also say, with equal confidence, that many undocumented immigrants pay taxes—taxes that they will likely never get to reap the benefits from having paid. For instance, in 2022, people without documented status paid an estimated $25.7 billion in Social Security taxes.

These folks are paying through their payroll taxes as they perform many tasks that most Americans refuse to do because the hourly pay is so low, including hotel jobs, dishwashing, harvesting fruits and vegetables at farms, and more.

Instead of using his platform to deliver a nuanced explanation of our fellow immigrants and trying to address our broken immigration system, he instead offered them the hateful pitchfork-and-torches solution: Let's build a wall, close the border, and deport them ALL!

His knee-jerk solution is not a solution at all. It redirects the anger and creates a false permission structure for some of the most heinous acts any living American has seen on American soil since the lynching of Black Americans and the internment of Asian Americans during World War II.

Every day, our cell phone screens are filled with horrific videos of raids by masked men claiming to be with ICE, kidnapping people off the street, throwing them into unmarked vans whether they are citizens or not. This is real Gestapo shit that more than half of Americans most certainly did not vote for, while the minority who did insist that everyone voted for it.

What is even the criteria they are using for grabbing these people? Is it because they "look" like undocumented immigrants? They seem to be employing a "hit-or-miss" technique for deciding whom to detain. Were they committing the crime of speaking Spanish?

And what the actual fuck is this shit with these guys being completely masked up, so you can't identify them? Many of them don't even have badges. I'm surprised there hasn't been more violence opposing these thugs, although they seem to be avoiding areas where many residents are expected to be armed and dangerous—you know, the people they claimed to be going after in the first place!

And our own neighbors, family members, and friends will all insist, "They're only going after criminals," despite clear evidence that the majority of people being grabbed have no criminal record—they are grabbing most of these people at their places of work or even at immigration court, where they are following the law.

"I ain't got no problem with them as long as they're followin' the legal process," is the weak excuse they offer until we inform them that they're being grabbed from court. "Well, they ain't had no business bein' here in the first place."

Actually, they did—it is still legal for people to seek asylum in the United States, although you could argue that it's probably not a good idea now, since they'll be risking being deported to El Salvador or Sudan.

This has been a systematic process of dehumanization: trump and other right-wing politicians demonized these people who have been law-abiding, tax-paying entrepreneurs, construction workers, gardeners, bakers, caretakers, hospitality workers, and so on.

The next step in their evil process was to have Fox News, OAN, Newsmax, the New York Post, and other right-wing publications sensationalize murders like that of Laken Riley, who was murdered while she was jogging by an undocumented immigrant. trump would characterize immigration as "an invasion," with mysterious caravans making their way toward America just before national elections and disappearing just as suddenly after the elections.

trump has just signed into law his "One Big Beautiful Bill," which includes $170 billion that will be used to supercharge what can only be described as terrifying, dystopian, extrajudicial kidnappings and deportations. They are grabbing teenage volleyball players, gay hairdressers, 75-year-old fathers of U.S. Marines, and 4-year-old cancer patients.

But what's even more terrifying is the number of people living among us who have somehow decided that they are okay with all of this, using any number of empty and wrongheaded rationalizations to help them sleep better at night.

"Well, they shouldn't have been here in the first place!"

"If they were here illegally, they were breaking the law, so there!"

"This is what I voted for!"

You may spend hours, days, or even weeks trying to dislodge them from their baked-in prejudices; I'd be shocked if you're able to change one in ten minds, even one in twenty. Even with supporting documents, websites, videos, and quotes, they will block them like Wonder Woman deflecting bullets with her bracelets.

Because to admit they were wrong, to admit they'd been deceived by a sharp-tongued devil, would mean that there was something fundamentally wrong with their heart that allowed hatred to creep into that space they thought was occupied exclusively by love.

People hate to admit that they've been tricked, and they hate even more to admit that they are racist—short of being accused of being a pedophile, it is the next worst thing someone could be accused of.

But, as with addiction, you cannot even begin to address an addiction problem unless you first admit you are addicted and are powerless. Likewise, they won't be able to expel the hate from their hearts until they admit it's there.

People will argue vehemently that they're not racist because:

- They didn't say anything racist.

- They have many Latino friends.

- They're only interested in upholding the law.

And to that, I would just say, if they're standing behind someone, and they support the way they treat others, and the way they speak to and treat others is racist, like rounding up a bunch of people and denying them due process because they look like they're undocumented, and they fail to oppose it or speak out against it, then they support it.

If you're OK with parents being yanked out of their kids' high school graduations because even though they've never stolen anything, sold drugs, or assaulted anyone they look Mexican... you might be a racist. No problem with throwing a teenage honor student with no criminal record into a detention center because she's Brown? Yeah, you're a racist.

How about detaining a United States Senator IN HIS OWN BUILDING, after he clearly identified himself? And then calling him a random Hispanic name like "Jose" when you know damn well his name is Alex?

How do these acts of kidnapping in broad daylight make us safer? Was the 72 year old abuelo quietly working at a car wash making you lose sleep? How about ripping a mother away from her 3 kids at immigration court? THAT is what they voted for? WHY, for fucks sake?

And if they support racist shit, it doesn't matter if they don't publicly use racist slurs, because their silence is complicity—they might as well start using the slurs, because they ain't foolin' anybody.

All of their rationales are bullshit: the crime angle, the "follow the legal process" angle, the illegal voting—all of it, just malicious lies fed to them by the right-wing outrage machine to turn them against people seeking asylum and a better life here.

I'll bet dollars to donuts that there is a fair number of ICE detainees who are named "Jesus." Ask them if they'd be comfortable deporting Jesus.

QUESTION: Do you have family, friends, neighbors, or co-workers who are vehemently supporting the ICE raids, and are vocal about it? What is your creative strategy for dealing with it? Leave your feedback in the comment section below.

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