Version imprimableSome of Trump’s actions are notorious, such as his racist firing of air force general CQ Brown Jr. a Black man, as chair of the joint chiefs of staff for supposedly putting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs ahead of the defense of the United States. Other Trump actions affect millions.
Trump issued an executive order ending all federal “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or DEI programs in the federal government. Many of those leading and working in such programs were Black, Latino, or Asian, and now hundreds and perhaps thousands have been fired. DEI represented an attempt by earlier administrations to ensure that federal programs served a diverse population. Now the government will lean the other way. In a spiteful example, Trump, in making English the only official language, has terminated weather emergency announcements—hurricanes, tornados, floods—in languages other than English.
Trump’s hatchet man Elon Musk is now carrying out the firing of 13 percent of the country’s 2.4 million civilian workers, that is, 312,000 people. While Black people make up 13.7 percent of the U.S. population, they made up 18.2% in the federal workforce. For decades the federal government gave Black people opportunities for secure jobs with decent pay and benefits when many private corporations did not.
As one former Black federal employee told the nonprofit Capital B news service, ‘My whole life is built on having a parent who was working in the federal service. That definitely shaped me — all of the opportunities and experiences that I got. That’s what we’re talking about when we talk about generations that are going to be impacted by these executive orders.”
Another large group being targeted are undocumented immigrants whom Trump plans to deport from the United States. Trump claims there are 20 million, though most experts say 11 million. In his first two months in office, Trump deported only about 25,000 undocumented immigrants, fewer than former president Joseph Biden, but U.S. immigration police are gearing up for truly mass deportation in the near future.
Trump is violating the U.S. Constitution and laws in deporting some 238 Venezuelan alleged gang members without any hearings or other due process and sending them to the notorious Maximum Security Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador. The Los Angeles Times reports that 90% of them had no criminal records and many were identified as gang members solely by their tattoos. There are various lawsuits attempting to reverse or stop such deportations.
Even legal immigrants are in danger. Trump ended what is called “temporary protective status” for 472,000 Venezuelans, 213,000 Haitian, 110,900 Cubans, over 93,000 Nicaraguans,14,600 Afghans, and 7,900 Cameroonians who will in the next few months become subject to deportation. If deported to their native countries, many of these people will face violence from their home country’s governments.
Trump has also begun to move thousands of immigrants’ Social Security numbers into the “death master file,” so that they become “legally dead,” making it more difficult to work in the United States or to get access to credit cards or bank accounts. The idea is to make their lives so impossible that they will “self-deport.”
While it is good that many have filed court cases against these actions, it will take a powerful working-class movement of unions and Black, Latino, and immigrant workers to stop Trump.
