Richard Sterling Surrey is a retired lawyer. He is a former general counsel of the U.S. National Security Agency (1990-92) and currently divides his time between Long Island, Maine, Washington, D.C., and Sevenoaks, England.

Masked gunmen are terrorizing America. They break into our homes, schools and businesses. They drag away innocent people, often never to be seen again by families, friends or loved ones. Families are destroyed and businesses and communities thrown into turmoil. The masked gunmen, of course, are President Trump’s own secret police — ICE.

Trump imagines that immigrants are destroying America. In 2015, he fulminated: “When
Mexico sends its people, … [they are] bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

At a 2023 campaign rally, Trump railed that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” “Illegal immigration is poisoning the blood of our nation. They’re coming from prisons, from mental institutions — from all over the world,” he later posted.

Commentators (and even some Republicans) charged these rantings echoed Hitler’s attacks on the Jews. Trump doubled down. “They’re destroying the blood of our country,” he raged.

Trump campaigned on promises to protect Americans by deporting such murderers, rapists, drug dealers and gang members. In March, a White House press release announced what Trump called the largest criminal illegal immigrant deportation operation in American history, emphasizing the removal of killers, rapists, drug dealers, gang members and suspected terrorists.

However, what Trump has done is vastly different. Since Trump became president, the administration has deported over 207,000 individuals. Of these, only 1% were alleged to be gang members and fewer than 1% were connected with either murders or sex offenses.

Only 5,500 were even alleged to be involved in any of the serious crimes Trump denounced.
On the other hand, 52,000 had no criminal record and another 40,000 had only alleged misdemeanor offences (mostly immigration offenses or traffic violations).

Of the 59,380 presently in ICE detention, 70% have no criminal convictions or charges. Even for those with convictions, many were for misdemeanor immigration or traffic violations.

So, if Trump can’t find any terrible criminals to deport, who are the immigrants being detained and deported? Mostly honest, law-abiding, hardworking people peacefully living in our neighborhoods.

They have jobs, pay taxes, go to local churches, sing in the choir and send their kids to local schools. Unlike many of their neighbors, who have legal status, these hardworking people do not qualify for federal benefits like Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP or Social Security.

Also, they are less likely than their native-born neighbors to commit violent crimes. That’s
right, your basic red-blooded “Born-in-the-USA” citizen is more likely to commit a violent crime than an undocumented immigrant.

It is not only undocumented immigrants who are being terrorized by ICE. American citizens and others with proper legal status are also very much at risk. According to a recent Government Accountability Office study, from 2015 to 2020, over 670 U.S. citizens were improperly arrested and detained and over 70 were deported.

In July, George Retes, a California-born U.S. citizen and Iraq war veteran, was detained by ICE. He was pepper sprayed and held for three days in a detention facility without being allowed to contact his family or lawyer. This happened despite Mr Retes repeatedly identifying himself as a U.S. citizen and a veteran.

Also in July, 20-year-old Yeonsoo Go, daughter of a New York City minister, was detained by ICE in New York. Given an expedited removal proceeding, she was immediately sent to a Louisiana detention facility without being allowed to contact her mother or a lawyer.

Yeonsoo was lawfully in the country on a religious visa that did not expire until December 2025. For three days, no one knew where this young woman was. Only after intervention by Sen. Chuck Schumer, other politicians and clergy was she found and released.

If undocumented immigrants are such wonderful members of our communities, why is Trump so intent on driving them out? As Hitler would say, it’s a matter of blood. Trump rants that immigrants are corrupting American blood and destroying American society.

As Hitler did with German Jews, Trump is trying to drive immigrants from America. He is using ICE, his secret police, to deport them. And insidiously, Trump is using ICE as an instrument of terror. He seeks to make life here so frightening that immigrants flee our country.

Trump is attempting ethnic cleansing in America — a crime against humanity under international law.

The question for us Americans is, we will stand by, as many Germans did under Hitler, and see our good neighbors detained, sent to concentration camps (i.e., detention centers) and deported to unknown fates? Or will we speak out to defend our neighbors?