Archives for 2024

I have faced fascism before, in this very country. I was one of 120,000 Japanese Americans summarily rounded up and expelled from our homes at gunpoint, all for the crime of looking like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor.

I spent my childhood behind barbed wire. My parents lost everything. 1/

— George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) November 15, 2024 at 7:43 PM

But we did not give up on this country. We rebuilt our lives, and we worked to ensure that something like this never happened again in America.

Now, I fear there are echoes from that dark chapter of our history. They are speaking once again of camps to hold people, this time for the crime of /2

…being undocumented. We must not repeat the mistakes of the past. We can learn from them. I know it feels bleak out there. I know it feels hopeless. But I am living proof that out of that darkness can rise great hope and optimism.

I will fight for the principles of this country until my /3

… very last breath. I ask you to join me in that fight. It is a noble one. It is a worthy one. And it is one we fight on behalf not just of ourselves, but of generations to come.

When you are my age, you will be able to look back upon this time and be proud of what you did, what you stood for. /4

So don’t give up hope. Do not despair. That is what they want, and we shall not give them that satisfaction. In Japanese, there is a word my mother used to say to me.

“Gaman, Georgie,” she’d say. It means to endure with fortitude and dignity. We all could benefit the spirit of Gaman. /5

Look to community. Look to friends and family who stood with us and who suffer the grief of this loss with us. In their company find comfort. And when you are ready to stand up and fight, I will be with you, too.

We will prevail. For the light always defeats the darkness. /end

Go read this. ??

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— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) November 21, 2024 at 7:52 AM

Dara Lind, “What ‘Mass Deportation’ Actually Means “ [gift link]:

… Donald Trump’s team has construed his victory as a mandate for carrying out what it has described as mass deportations. Even before Mr. Trump announced a nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, he named Stephen Miller, an immigration hard-liner, as deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser, and Tom Homan (who was the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during part of Mr. Trump’s first term) as a White House-based czar to oversee “all deportation of illegal aliens back to their country of origin.”

It is tempting to assume that after his first term and four more years of planning, Mr. Trump and his administration will find no obstacles to impose their will swiftly and completely.

But that’s not true. No executive order can override the laws of physics and create, in the blink of an eye, staff and facilities where none existed. The constraints on a mass deportation operation are logistical more than legal. Deporting one million people a year would cost an annual average of $88 billion, and a one-time effort to deport the full unauthorized population of 11 million would cost many times that — and it’s difficult to imagine how long it would take.

So the question is not whether mass deportation will happen. It’s how big Mr. Trump and his administration will go, and how quickly. How many resources — exactly how much, for example, in the way of emergency military funding — are they willing and able to marshal toward the effort? How far are they willing to bend or break the rules to make their numbers?

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Open Thread: When It Comes to Deportations, Do Not Comply in AdvancePost + Comments (57)