Would Trump’s ‘Deportation Force’ Become America’s Secret Police?
by Chris Jennewein
Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump‘s vow to establish a “deportation force” to remove 11 million undocumented immigrants should scare freedom-loving Americans.
The real estate mogul turned Presidential front-runner said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Wednesday that he would build a deportation force in addition to tripling the number of Border Patrol and immigration agents.
A deportation force organized to round up one group of the population has a dangerous similarity to the secret police forces employed by totalitarian regimes in the last century. Nazi Germany’s Gestapo, Soviet Russia’s KGB and communist East Germany’s STASI immediately come to mind.
These were hated and feared because they relied on citizens as informers. Loyal citizens could gain status by denouncing Jews, gypsies, intellectuals, communists or anti-communists, depending on the regime.
An American Deportation Force would have to rely on similar techniques to accomplish Trump’s plan to remove 11 million people. Some undocumented immigrants have drivers licenses and immigration files with addresses, but many others do not. In any case, most undocumented immigrants would probably try to find ways to hide.
One can only imagine then the anonymous calls to the free Deportation Force hotline:
Trump has focused on Mexican immigrants in his rhetoric and with his “great wall” plan, but most immigrants now come from Asia. That means anybody who isn’t white and European could potentially be an undocumented immigrant. There would be plenty of suspicion — and terror — to go around.
Democrat Hillary Clinton put this idea in perspective, tweeting Wednesday that “the idea of tracking down and deporting 11 million people is absurd, inhumane, and un-American.”
Maybe Trump’s statements are all bluster, designed to win the nomination but not really what he intends to do. But what if he means what he says and is elected president?
Republican voters may not like immigrants, but they’ll like a secret police force even less.
Chris Jennewein is editor and publisher of Times of San Diego, a year-and-a-half-old online news site that reaches nearly 200,000 readers a month. This article is reprinted from the Times of San Diego which, along with The Moderate Voice, is a member of the San Diego Online News Association.