In the mode of historic fascist regimes, President Donald Trump’s administration sent federal agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to raid the home of a political opponent, singled out for her race and religion, in a transparent effort to strip her of her citizenship.
On Monday, agents with Homeland Security Investigations, ICE’s investigative wing, conducted a search of the Washington, D.C., home of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., with federal officials describing the incursion as part of “an ongoing federal criminal investigation.”
HSI was previously known for targeting human traffickers, drug smugglers, and war criminals. But under the second Trump administration, the unit has been increasingly focused on investigating protesters and immigration fraud.
That latter category is exactly what Trump administration officials have been prejudiciously applying to Omar for months. In March, Vice President JD Vance said, “We actually think that Ilhan Omar definitely committed immigration fraud against the United States of America.”
And, last month, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said that “something is going to happen” on the Omar case, with immigration czar Tom Homan confirming an investigation.
The ICE raid against Omar, however, is an extremist escalation in Trump’s long-running threats to denaturalize the member of Congress, who was born in Somalia but came to the U.S. as a refugee when she was a young child. Omar, who has denied the repeated allegations of immigration fraud, is on the ballot for reelection in November.
Not only does the raid send a chill to all naturalized citizens who, like Omar, oppose the Trump regime, it is also one of the most ominous signs to date of how dangerous Trump and his acolytes can get in the next two years.
With his popularity tanking and his grip on power growing tenuous, Trump is becoming a flailing tyrant. Meanwhile, he has been granted extraordinary executive power by a loyalist Supreme Court and has purged the federal government of practically all checks and balances. It’s a recipe for immense harm.
A Nakedly Fascist Move
Debates about whether the Trump regime qualifies as fascist are old, tired, and not worth retreading here.
There can be little doubt, though, that targeting a racialized political opponent for deportation three weeks before an election is a nakedly fascist move — especially in the context of the far right’s evermore vitriolic attacks on Somali communities nationwide.
“Minnesota is being taken over by Somali Immigrants,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post last week. “The Somalians should not be allowed to get away with what they are doing. They view you as weak and stupid people. Fight back Minnesota, fight back!”
It was nothing short of an exhortation to a race war.
As his popular support continues to wane, we can be sure that the president and his white supremacist Cabinet will marshal the force of the federal government in even more fascistic ways.
Many means of stopping Trump have been defanged, as the raid itself makes clear.
We cannot rely on the courts. The warrant to search Omar’s home, for instance, was signed by a judge.
The judicial system, indeed, has permitted vast swaths of Trump’s anti-immigrant excesses. Courts have also sent activists to prison for decades for attending protests against the federal government. And, while some federal judges and even the Supreme Court have pushed back on some of Trump’s agenda, it is also the courts that have covered the president with impunity. We know, too, that this administration routinely disregards court orders in the knowledge that it will not face consequences.
There is little more optimism to be had on the congressional front. Even if Democrats take back Congress in November, they must reckon with an embattled authoritarian executive with a fully funded standing militia — namely, ICE.
Democrats should unite to stop Trump’s efforts to lawlessly deport a colleague based on a racist political witch hunt, but we can expect little congressional action beyond condemnatory statements. Indeed, all too many centrist Democrats have been happy to throw left-wing colleagues, particularly Muslims like Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., to the wolves.
Elected leaders, from the national to municipal level, should be strategizing about how to protect their constituents from Trump’s worst extremes in the knowledge that he and his allies will escalate further. Impeachment should be a priority, yes, but so too should passing laws to dismantle and defund ICE, among other measures — just the sorts of things mainstream Democrats have refused to countenance.
If not the courts or elected leaders, what then? The answer is clear: Trump’s desperate authoritarianism must also be met by mass popular and militant opposition.
It is not enough to vote in November, then cross our fingers for two more years.
It is not enough to vote in November, then cross our fingers for two more years. Organizers on the front lines defending immigrant neighbors against ICE are exhausted and need numbers and support.
Activists facing trial or already sentenced to decades in prison for resisting Trump’s regime need ongoing legal support and funding. Readiness is all.
This is not to suggest that we must live in a state of paralyzing fear of an evermore delusional tyrant. The point, rather, is to recognize the danger and go on.
Resistance to Trump, to the border regime, and to racist state violence already exists; it must be supported, expanded, and the subject of an escalation of our own.
