Killing the fathers

 

Adrian Carrasquillo covers the Trump tribe's war on immigrants for The Bulwark. Sometimes I wonder how even such a professional journalist can bear the anguish that is his subject.

ICE's new permanent family separation

... In the first Trump administration, opposition to the president’s immigration agenda was galvanized by the horrors of family separation. As Adam Serwer memorably noted back in 2018, “The cruelty is the point.”

 

Today, the opposition is different, and the stakes seem far higher. It’s not separation that drives the fear; it’s disruption and death. There is deep mourning, but there is also a growing fury at these ICE killings all over Latino social media. It’s become clear that mass deportation comes with this type of violence—and maybe that’s by design.

 

Under images of Araujo and Guerrero as departed angels, the page Latino and Muslim Unity wrote,  “Our fathers deserve to come home to their families. We demand accountability.”
 

Carlos Espina, a social media influencer with 23 million followers across TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, posted videos at turns angry and heartbroken.
 

“The Colombian immigrant that was assassinated in a hail of bullets by ICE in Maine was in the car with his three-year-old baby,” Espina said in one. “It shows this agency has no type of respect for human life, much less the lives of our people. They see us as dogs, animals or worse.”
 

JC Frias, a Mexican-American activist with nearly 250,000 Instagram followers, shared the final words of both men: “Me estan matando” and “I tried to stop.”
 

“They were fathers. They were providers. They were loved. And they were HUNTED because of the color of their skin,” he wrote. In another post, Frias echoed a sentiment I’ve seen repeated often, including in private messages to me from Latinos and Mexican-Americans who saw their own father in Lorenzo Araujo.
 

“Lorenzo’s memorial says more than words ever could,” Frias wrote, describing the candles, Mexican flags, soccer jerseys, and families stopping to pray. “One message echoed over and over,” he said. “Lorenzo could have been any of our dads.” ...

Follow Carrasquillo at Huddled Masses.