Trump’s anemic imagination undermines the American Dream
By Aatish Taseer
Donald Trump’s policies strike against the cultural fabric of the United States and embolden racists and revisionist groups such as KKK As of this writing, Ingrid Latorre has been living in the Mountain View Friends Meeting for more than two months. The waiting is difficult. She waits to hear back from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, waits to hear from her lawyers, waits for Bryant and Eliseo to visit at night, and waits for the day when she can go back to her normal life.
She received word that she has been granted a hearing on 3 May on her request to have her criminal case reopened. It’s good news, but it raises a dilemma. Ingrid will have to attend the hearing in person. If she hasn’t received a response from Ice before then, or if Ice denies her application for a stay, leaving the safety of Mountain View will mean making herself vulnerable to deportation. The coalition is strategizing about how best to protect her on the drive to and from the courthouse.
It’s not yet clear how the Trump administration will treat cases like Ingrid’s – several activists I spoke to say that the new executive orders, while full of bluster, don’t contain much in the way of substantive policy changes from the Obama years. But to Ingrid, the news coming out of Washington is dispiriting.
“It’s really upsetting to see how quickly this president has been moving,” she told me. “And I don’t know what’s going to happen. My situation feels more difficult now.”
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