Donald Trump’s New Immigration Policy: Law, Ethics, and Global Impacts
By: Raja Zahid Akhtar Khanzada
Recently, in the shadow of the White House’s white walls, that moment was symbolic when the German Chancellor handed President Trump his grandfather’s German birth certificate, as if time had placed a mirror before him. A document that bore witness to the past: “You too were once migrants, who planted their dreams on someone else’s land.” Yet that document remained a silent plea, and the mirror through which a human was meant to see his true form perhaps became clouded by arrogance. Today, the same America that yesterday welcomed migrants with open arms is now erecting walls around them harsh, lifeless, and ruthless.
In recent days, a photograph shook the world’s conscience. A Venezuelan prisoner’s scream “Como perros! Como perros!”. “They are herding us like dogs!” was not merely a prisoner’s cry; it was an elegy for an entire civilization, the civilization that erected the Statue of Liberty yet harbored the desire for chains in hearts. Are we truly heirs to those values that imprison a person along with their dreams? A land may be given, yet their very breath is stolen?
As soon as Trump assumed power for the second time, America’s tone on immigration policy changed. It is no longer merely a matter of law; it has become a battle of state pride and human agency. Illegal immigrants are not only being deported they are being pushed into prisons where the light of humanity never reaches: where CECOT imposes formidable cells, where Guantánamo lies hollow, and where dreams are buried on the silent soils of South Sudan.
This is all a silent killing of memories, of generational dreams, and of the promise once made by America to the thousands of migrants who disembarked on Ellis Island. Those mothers, those children, those laborers who fled war, hunger, and oppression to reach America—today, this land regards them as prisoners, deems them threats.
ICE is not merely conducting raids; it has transformed the entire nation into a clandestine network, linking even the IRS, FBI, DEA, and Postal Service via a technology called RAVEn, so that each individual can be monitored, identified, and wherever they are found, picked up. This is not policy it is disorder in the name of order, and a web of fear behind the veil of justice.
Trump asserts that this step is necessary to keep the nation safe, because these people are sources of terrorism, crime, and waste of state resources. But if there is no crime, no charge, and no court, then on what basis is the punishment meted?
Behind the bars of CECOT are individuals against whom there is neither indictment nor legal defence. They are migrants and now, that is their greatest crime.
Suspension of habeas corpus, removal of judicial oversight, and use of emergency powers these are the actions that darken the face of the Constitution. Law is not only power it is the protector of mercy and conscience. When law assumes the guise of vengeance instead of justice, it signifies not the triumph of state, but the defeat of humanity.
The thoroughfare at Ellis Island has now morphed into dark checkpoints of ICE. Reports of 2,000 arrests daily, and registration of over 100,000 detainees these are not figures, but tallies of suffering. From La Paz to Los Angeles, when protests erupted, the state responded with batons, gas, and curfews. Over 318 public representatives were arrested, and 197 more were incarcerated simply because they wouldn’t remain “quiet.” The nighttime curfew in downtown Los Angeles was, in effect, a slap in the face of democracy: “Silence your tongues, compress your hearts, and raise no questions.”
This is the moment for all of us to pause and reflect: if today a migrant is imprisoned, tomorrow it could be him who shut the door. Because when oppression becomes law, everyone is a prisoner some in chains, others in conscience.
This is not just a tale of American migrants, but of all nations that once bought into the “American Dream” a dream now auctioned off, its price paid in tears, confinement, and silence.
Trump’s logic is clear: national security demands that visa violators be deemed “dangerous criminals.” Yet, when we scrutinize the numbers, a different truth emerges: more than 141,000 undocumented migrants have been deported, ICE detention capacity has surged by over 30%, and the focus now includes those who attend school, take classes, or study in libraries.
An 18-year-old Honduran student was arrested at the school gate no court, no lawyer, no time for defence. The one who came to learn now stands behind bars, with innocent eyes confronting the face of democracy and likely failing to recognize it.
When in Los Angeles the nighttime curfew was enforced, and citizens raised their voices, then upon them batons rained. Young girls were shackled in handcuffs. Public representatives were taken from the streets. Law, which was created for protection, has now become a weapon of arrests. Los Angeles’s Mayor, Karen Bass, called all this “an authoritarian style of governance,” and California’s Governor, Gavin Newsom, termed it “an attack on democracy.” But perhaps the original question is: is all this happening for some benefit? Brookings and the Peterson Institute have clearly stated that restrictions on immigration will damage the American economy; GDP could potentially see a reduction of 4.2 to 6.8 percent. A nation that once sold dreams, today thinks it will become prosperous by imprisoning those same dreams in jails. But in the land where even breath is sold, futures are not born only graves.
Amnesty International and other global organizations are loudly declaring that these policies are racist and inhumane. But those who hold the mirror to power are the first to be crushed. While covering the protests, several journalists were temporarily detained and injured, and several media houses received threats. All this happened simply because some humans raised their voices for the rights of others like themselves. Those boys, those mothers, those children who came from countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Yemen, Venezuela, and Somalia who had come just to “buy” life today carry chains in their hands, their dream is now locked in an ICE white vehicle, their hope has descended upon the deserted border of some unknown country. Those who wanted to make America their home through hard work, today have been ousted from the homeland and their only crime is that they were not born here.
Trump’s immigration policy is not a matter of numerical accounting; it is a new form of human tragedy. It is the funeral of a century-old hope a dream in which borders dissolved and humans were simply humans. Today, when a migrant watches the walls of a prison with silent eyes, a heart cries out: “Were we all alive, or were we just passing numbers?”
These policies are not just a question of America’s direction; they are a test of the world’s conscience. For developing nations, this is a strict warning that if we do not provide our generations with legal, dignified, and safe paths, then one day their dreams will also land anonymously at airports and be destroyed. And the nations that force their children to live under the shadow of chains have nothing but fear in their future.
For all nations, too, this is a bitter moment. Are we placing our youth on a path where their identity depends on a piece of paper? Where the brave are imprisoned? Are those who set out with dreams of education, toil, and service deserving of punishment? Is it not our duty to create a system where immigration is not just about privilege but also about justice?
But the question is not merely about policy it is about philosophy. Is the right to live on a land conditioned solely on birth? Can those who nurtured the economy with their blood, who cleaned at night and built at day, be deported over a wrong visa or incomplete paperwork?
Perhaps we should remember that no land is anyone’s permanent inheritance. The pages of history tell us that those who built walls were themselves buried within them one day. And those expelled their dreams remained in the skies, living on in the minds of generations.
Trump’s grandfather an immigrant fled from Germany to America with hope. Today’s migrant arrives with that same hope. The only difference is: one had an empty bag in hand, the other has handcuffs. Perhaps now is the time to remove humans from the shells of nations, religions, and borders, and begin to see them as just humans. Because if we remain silent today, next time the prisoner may be us. And then someone else will remember us by saying “Como perros
