America’s enduring appetite for Trump’s deportation cruelty

Most Americans know the names of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, two unarmed American citizens who were killed in January by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis because they dared to help the human targets of Donald Trump’s cruel policies. Their moral stand against injustice led to their deaths. 

Many others have also suffered because of the Trump administration’s policies. We must never forget their names. They are real human beings and not collateral damage. Power and policy are not abstractions — they hurt real people’s bodies, minds and lives, and the well-being of the larger community.

On Feb. 26, Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a nearly blind Rohingya refugee from Myanmar who spoke little English, was found dead on a street in Buffalo, New York. Reported missing on Feb. 19, he was dropped off by Border Patrol agents at a coffee shop, on a cold day, alone. He had no shoes, only the orange booties given to him at a detention center.   

Alam was in the country legally, but he had been detained for almost a year in the Erie County jail and released on a misdemeanor plea deal. Border Patrol took him into custody and determined they could not legally deport him. He had been arrested after a minor altercation with police; Alam was apparently too confused to follow their orders.

His son told Reuters that his father could not read, write or use electronic devices. The family lives on the other side of the city, miles away from the coffee shop. After releasing him, Border Patrol apparently did not attempt to contact Alam’s family or his attorney.  

Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan told CNN that Alam’s death embodies “bad policing [and] bad human beings.” The behavior of the federal agents, he said, was “inhumane” and an example of “why we do not cooperate with ICE, Homeland Security and Border Patrol.”

In a statement to the Daily Beast, Customs and Border Protection said that Alam “showed no signs of distress, mobility issues, or disabilities requiring special assistance” and was left at “a warm, safe location near his last known address.” The Trump administration is supposedly “investigating” Alam’s premature death. Whatever the finding may be, bureaucratic legalese will not bring him back to life, and Border Patrol’s callous actions are part of a much larger pattern of behavior.

There are widespread reports of inhumane treatment and violations of human and civil rights — including excessive force, lack of medical care, and physical, sexual, emotional, and other forms of abuse — in Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol detention centers across the country. Reports indicate that children and other vulnerable people are also being mistreated.

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These stories come in addition to other Kafkaesque reports about the real people being ensnared in the administration’s cruel mass deportation machine. U.S. military veterans who served with distinction are being deported. Members of the LGBTQ community are being sent back to countries where they are likely to be killed. College students are being grabbed at airports or taken from their dorms by federal agents and put in detention for immediate deportation.

According to the Guardian, 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025 — three times the number of deaths in 2024.

On CNN’s “NewsNight,” commentator and GOP strategist Scott Jennings tried to minimize Alam’s death, arguing that “it’s reasonable to assume you’re going to have individual interactions where something goes awry.” Host Abby Phillip was disgusted. “I think some people would say there is a way to do this that respects human life…respects the lives of people who are here, trying to seek a better life, trying to do the best they can, and doesn’t treat them as disposable,” she responded.

But moral callousness is a defining feature of the Age of Trump.

The president’s approval ratings are in a tail spin, with only 39% of Americans approving of his immigration policy. Trump has also lost a modest amount of support among Republicans for his immigration policy. This reflects a broader collapse, where his overall approval is now at historic lows.

But context matters in what constitutes a morality test of the American people. Despite the drop in Trump’s levels of approval, the numbers remain damning. Tens of millions of Americans continue to support the administration’s mass deportation policies.

A Fox News survey taken between Jan. 23-26 — the very time frame in which Pretti was killed in Minneapolis — asked registered voters if ICE agents were “too aggressive,” “not aggressive enough” or “about right.” Seventeen percent said ICE is not aggressive enough. In essence, one in six Americans want federal agents to be even more violent and reckless.

This pattern continues. According to the results of an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll taken in February after the killings of Pretti and Good, 31% of Americans support the tactics that ICE is using. The number is much higher — 70% — among Republicans. 

Why does such a large percentage of the public — and, more specifically, Republicans and MAGA conservatives — continue to support the administration’s campaign of abuse and violence?

Political polarization and media echo chambers have shaped a narrative where many Americans believe that immigrants are hardened, violent criminals. In reality, immigrants commit crimes at much lower rates than native-born Americans.

Republicans and Trump voters are more likely to be authoritarians, and research shows they possess a high social dominance orientation. Political scientists and other experts have repeatedly found that this group is also more likely to be nativist, racist and hostile to non-whites, and to believe that so-called real Americans are white.

This corresponds to the centuries-long history of state-sponsored violence against non-whites, immigrants and those deemed to be the Other. The Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign continues this history of violence.

Perhaps most troubling, many people enjoy watching members of the marginalized, othered group being subjected to violence and other abuse. Research has also shown that members of Trump’s MAGA coalition, along with self-identified conservatives more broadly, are more likely to possess what social psychologists describe as the “dark triad” of personality traits —  Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy — and to lack empathy.  

Resisting its pull requires that people of conscience and others who support real democracy engage in acts of moral witnessing and radical empathy. They must not turn away. Bearing witness means physically standing with the stranger, the Other, the victim — placing one’s body between them and the power of the state and its enforcers. This will be scary and uncomfortable for many Americans. But overcoming that fear and engaging in collective action will build momentum, and a type of muscle memory, where the new rule becomes action and not inaction. 

Authoritarians and other bad actors depend on inertia among the public, and a type of collective decision rule where most default to accepting the daily horrors and wrongdoing. In this, they become complicit through tacit consent.

More than ever, we should be standing up and saying “Not in my name.” Or in the names of Alex Pretti, Renee Good and Nurul Amin Shah Alam.

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