As the Trump administration carries out widespread crackdowns on our nation’s immigrant population, The Milpitas Beat this week caught up with California State Assemblymember Alex Lee to get his perspective on the situation and learn more about how California is responding on an official level…
Said Lee, “What the Trump administration is doing that is unusual and flat-out unconstitutional and illegal in so many ways is they are using their federal executive authority — whether it be through the military or through ICE — to kidnap, to detain, to arrest, and literally send people to other countries that they have no relation to. And this is not just talking about, quote-unquote, illegal immigrants. They’re doing this to green card holders. They’re doing this to citizens in some cases. They’re doing this to every person that is deemed unworthy.”
He added that the administration is also working to deprive some people of citizenship. “They’re talking about denaturalizing people,” Lee said. “So this is far from enforcement of immigration laws. They are straight up redefining who is a citizen and who is allowed to be in a country at gunpoint.”
He characterizes the federal government’s actions under Donald Trump as fascist, highlighting how we’ve seen U.S. troops marching through parks in Los Angeles. Earlier this week, Trump sent 90 National Guard troops into LA’s MacArthur Park to conduct a sweep, as a way of showing their presence and their capacity to appear at any time. “They’re sending troops, real federal troops, not just the National Guard now; they’re sending Marines into Florida and other places to go round up people or protect ICE agents.”
Trump has deployed the Marines and the National Guard to California, Florida, and Texas to support ICE or accompany ICE on raids, or to conduct border surveillance or similar activities. To date, over 3,000 National Guard members and over 2,000 Marines have been deployed for such duties.
Just last week, Lee shared, as part of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” Congress appropriated more money for ICE — $75 billion over 4 years, until 2029 — than some countries have for their entire military budgets. Australia, Canada, and Israel, for example, all spend less on their whole militaries.
“It’s the total weaponization of the federal government for the purposes of political theater and terror,” Lee said, explaining that Trump’s directives stem from white supremacy and its desire to ensure the preeminence of whiteness in our country, as well as the president’s need to distract from how “Trump is destroying the global trade economy, how he’s destroying our domestic economy, how he’s messing up with wars. It’s a great cover screen for all the terrible things he’s also doing. So it’s simultaneously a distraction, but also a way to implement terror.”
Just today, a California farm worker died after a pair of federal raids on cannabis farms.
Earlier in the year, the State of California allocated $50 million that can go toward protecting immigrants: $25 million to provide immigrants with legal aid and $25 million for the state to file anticipated lawsuits against President Trump.
“California is still the most populous and the most prosperous state in the union,” said Lee, “and we have to use our resources to defend people and to also provide services to people, especially as the federal government is taking away health care, food…”
Through it all, though, Lee remains optimistic: “You know, as a progressive, I’m an eternal optimist…
“I think you’re going to see a real, real resistance to the things that are happening.”
Ah yes, fight for the criminals, the Democrat’s mantra. No, it’s not unconstitutional and yes, it’s all legal according to the SCOTUS. Obama deported 3,000,000 and Biden 1,500,000, and we didn’t hear the whining then, so until Trump get’s close to those numbers, you’re just being hypocrites.
Being a “Progressive” is code speak for neo-Marxist.
Here we go, just like last issue, the Post only publishes responses that tow the Democratic line or won’t publish any at all. Wouldn’t want to present both sides of the story now would we? Not very tolerant or inclusive of them.