The White House’s callous tactics are warping perceptions of reality.
From the beginning, Donald Trump’s approach to deportations has been about both removing people from the country and the spectacle of removing people from the country. If any doubt lingered about the president’s commitment to the cause, he erased it in Los Angeles, where his response to the widespread protests against a series of ICE raids—he has dispatched roughly 4,000 California National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines, all against the wishes of the state’s governor—has been an extraordinary (and extraordinarily excessive) demonstration of force. Trump’s message has been clear: No matter who or what tries to get in the way, his administration will push forward with deportations. L.A. is “the first, perhaps, of many” military deployments in the United States, Trump said earlier this week.
