
Assistant Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs Amelia Frank-Vitale offers insight into President Trumps signing of 10 administrative orders on immigration.
Frank-Vitale states Trump’s rapid-fire moves on immigration instill fear and chaos (raids in cities like Newark and Chicago, the abrupt canceling of CBPone appointments for asylum seekers). And yet, the Trump agenda is full of spectacle. The numbers of individuals deported is not higher; there is nothing new about deportees being handcuffed during transport. The use of military airplanes, however, shows a new attitude is in the White House (never mind that military planes carry fewer people than the charter planes routinely used by ICE). There is no ambivalence about deportation. The Trump administration does not feel the need to temper or justify its actions, proudly promoting daily arrests (as though the numbers were massively higher; they are not), gleeful and triumphant in the cruelty. Meanwhile, some of the most vulnerable people in the world are being used by Trump and his counterparts in other countries as pawns of diplomacy – people in exchange for tariffs, lives upended in return for cheaper goods.
Click here to read the full article, “Princeton SPIA Faculty Offer Reations to Trump Immigration Policies.”