U.S. immigration agents wearing masks arrested a Georgetown University academic outside his home in Virginia. They detained two German tourists for weeks when they tried to enter the country legally through the southern border. They knocked on doors at Columbia University apartments, searching for pro-Palestinian protesters.
The Trump administration has opened a new phase in its immigration agenda, one that goes well beyond the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.
U.S. border officials are using more aggressive tactics, which the administration calls “enhanced vetting,” at ports of entry to the United States, prompting American allies like Germany to update their travel advisories. At the same, the administration is targeting legal immigrants who have expressed views that the government believes threaten national security and undermine foreign policy.
The tactics have unnerved foreign tourists and sent a chill through immigrant communities in the United States, who say they are being targeted for speech — not for breaking any laws.
How is this not apparent as a terrible, terrible precedent to anyone who claims that our constitution matters to them?