The Trump administration's immigration policies have inflicted profound suffering, and the nation is now facing a moment of moral reckoning. Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute, recently described this period as “a dark night of the soul as a country.” His words resonate deeply.
In a Texas courtroom last month, children as young as three and six faced deportation hearings. Among them was Angel, a 13-year-old from Honduras, who tearfully pleaded that returning home was “too dangerous” and that his entire family was in the U.S. The judge ruled he did not qualify for asylum, leaving him with a choice between a deportation order or voluntary departure. Angel broke down, crying, “I have no one. I have nothing.”
These are not isolated incidents. ICE agents have been responsible for the deaths of U.S. citizens, and immigrant communities live in constant fear. Families are torn apart, and even those who have followed the rules are being deported to countries like South Sudan, Eswatini, and Rwanda. The public executions of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, the killing of food delivery worker Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine, and the shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston are just a few examples of the violence.
In the past year, 37 people have died in ICE custody, many with Hispanic surnames whose names are not widely known but are “known to God.” Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C., recently used the story of the Good Samaritan to illustrate the nation's moral failure. He noted that it is easy to condemn the priest and Levite who passed by a robbery victim, but asked: “Who are we in the story?”
When migrants are deported, workers are raided, and families are detained, many Americans have played the role of the priest and Levite, looking the other way. The dismantling of USAID, which has saved millions of lives overseas, has been met with a collective shrug of “What can we do?” Meanwhile, Trump has called himself “the greatest president ever,” but Harvard professor Steven Levitsky argues that the U.S. has “slid into some form of authoritarianism.”
A recent Economist/YouGov poll shows that majorities of Americans view Trump as “arrogant,” “opportunistic,” “reckless,” “dishonest,” “corrupt,” “hypocritical,” and “divisive.” The term “Trumpism” has come to define this era, much like “McCarthyism” defined the 1950s. President Harry Truman once said that McCarthy's only importance was that his name “has taken on a dictionary meaning”—“the rise to power of the demagogue who lives on untruth; it is the spreading of fear and destruction of faith in every level of our society.”
That definition fits Trumpism perfectly. But the danger is that we will blame one man and ignore our own complicity. Someday, each of us will be asked: “What did you do when people were killed on the streets, or children held in detention, or when other cruelties too numerous to mention were inflicted on others?” Did you “pass on by,” as Cardinal McElroy warned, or did you protest, vote, and make your views known?
In his 1953 inaugural address, Dwight D. Eisenhower offered a “little private prayer” for the power to discern right from wrong and for cooperation among those of differing political faiths. That prayer is just as relevant today. A historical reckoning with Trump is coming, and it will not forget America's role.
