I can’t even spell “Venezuela”, unaided.
So why is the Trump administration so obsessed with Venezuelans?
This is my best guess.
Option 1: It’s a mandatory casting call for extras in the latest mini-series.
The whole “mass deportation” thing has been a flop. A ratings failure. Stinkeroo, compared to what it could have been.
Why?
I’m pretty sure you’ve got demand. There’s a lot of MAGA-America that wants to see some immigration rollback. The more the better, due process be damned, and state-sponsored creation of orphans, on a mass scale, no barrier.
Instead, it’s a supply-side problem.
Arguably, ICE etc. may have actually been, you know, doing their jobs all along. Plausibly, the small-scale MAGA-arranged stunts so far reduced the overall efficiency with which ICE enforces deportation orders, and so actually reduced net deportations.
In any case, I don’t recall anybody crowing about some notable uptick of deportations above the level shown at the end of the Biden administration. I am sure that if one had occurred, we’d have heard about it.
A supply-side bottleneck would make sense, as fugitives tend to be thin on the ground, so to speak. It’s relatively tough to track down a crowd of them, let alone enough to fill Guantanamo.
At this point, I know what you’re saying: Why not just film the empty concentration camps, and have AI fill in the huge crowds of miserable illegal aliens being mistreated on their way to their justly-deserved deportation? Just go ahead and film the deportation-concentration camp spectacle, very cheaply, as AI-generated clips. Intersperse with a few personal-interest stories, well-acted, and bingo, it’s Return to Venezuela, the miniseries. Done without the need of a cast of thousands. Better, really, because actors would talk, but you own the AI. Hey, if they could fake the Apollo moon landing …
What is a reasoned, rational, dedicated MAGA to do?
Find some supply. Make some supply.
I’m afraid that’s what the Supreme Court just did, in removing an emergency restraining order, and so allowing Trump’s people to remove “Temporary Protected Status” from about 300K Venezuelans. Immediately.
Pending judicial review, of course. (Note that the dude from Maryland is still in the El Salvadorian prison where Trump sent him, with no trial, despite a 9-0 Supreme Court ruling.)
My main point being that unlike illegal immigrants, these are legal immigrants. Or were. The Federal government has a list of their names and addresses. Ironically, the Feds have that because these people abided by the law.
In theory, the attempted mass deportation of this population is still pending. What the Supreme Court said was that the MAGAs can proceed with whatever-it-is-they-intend-to-do-next, and that an emergency legal stay of action was lifted. And that the rest of the legal process for this — the “appeals process” — can continue. There’s a chance the courts will eventually quash this whole thing. Or not.
But until then, I’m guessing this will provide the required cast of extras for filming the necessary deportation concentration-camp scenes. What happens after the filming isn’t a significant part of the cost/benefit calculus.
Options 2 and up for explaining Venezuelan obsession
Venezuela is a poster child for how a dictator can run a country into the ground. You don’t want U.S. citizens thinking about why so many people want to leave Venezuela.
The grant of Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans was done by executive order. (As are all such grants, apparently?) So, there’s both the excuse of “anything Biden did was bad” and “Trump has the legal right to do this”.
These people may be the target of this action solely because it can be done legally. The theory is that the Biden administration’s grant of this temporary legal-immigrant status can be terminated abruptly by rapid-deportation-without-due-process, by the Trump administration.
The need for speed, by the way, seems part-and-parcel with declaring a national emergency, giving these orders legal status on a footing with those issued during time of war.
Such loophole-threading being the hallmark of MAGA legal strategy.
Conclusion
So far, the whole mass-deportation thing has been a bust.
This time, though, they have the names and addresses of everyone they want to deport.
1: Maybe that’s all a bluff.
2: Maybe it’ll satisfy the MAGA base merely to pick up a few hundred, for some quick videos of rough handling and planeloads of deportees.
3: Maybe this is how they generate a longed-for cast of tens of thousands of imprisoned immigrants. You want to film an epic, you need vast crowd of unhappy rag-tag families. Near as I can tell, the Supreme Court just said, go ahead until this winds its way through the normal court processes.
You could have an epic motion picture in the can by that time.
4: Maybe it’s just zombie policy that once had a point. Deterrence is a legitimate facet of border enforcement. Once upon a time, there might have been a point of showing purposeful cruelty to those you wish to deter from entering illegally. But there is no longer a surge of potential immigrants at the border. If that’s the justification, this is simply zombie policy.
In any case, thanks to the Supreme Court, the MAGAs now know where to find lots of potential deportees. They’ve got a list. Likely it will still take some time to round up enough of them to be worth filming.
Meanwhile, ICE will be diverted from its normal duties. So it’s a lose-lose, but with good optics anyway, as long as you don’t pay any attention to the numbers.
My guess is, round-’em-up, we will. At least enough to make for good TV. Beyond that, it hardly matters.
