President Donald Trump suggests that the aim of his crackdown on immigrants is to “defend Americans” from “savage,” “worst of the worst” intruders who kill Americans or at least are “dangerous criminals.”
What does Trump’s crackdown look like in real life? In Lawrence, Kan., the other day, immigration agents handcuffed a beloved chemistry professor as he was leaving his home to drive his daughter to school.
“I’m a normal 12-year-old with a dad like everybody else’s dad,” the daughter he was about to drive that morning, Naheen Jamal, told me. “I don’t understand why this is happening.”
Her dad, Syed A. Jamal, 55, had been in America for 30 years, having arrived legally from Bangladesh as a student, before overstaying his visa. He loved Kansas and settled in Lawrence, teaching at local colleges and volunteering at local schools.
But President Trump, you say that these people are “criminals, drug dealers, rapists” and that we must be protected from them.