Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1542534
FOR my health, I wish I could avoid reading ill-informed and frankly brainwashed com- ments. But for the purpose of knowing how others reason (a term I use loosely) and in order to get the full picture, I force myself to read everything. Thankfully, I don't suffer from high blood pressure otherwise it would go through the roof, but some remarks are enough to give me severe anxiety and palpitations. They demonstrate once again just how polarised the US and the world, includ- ing this insignificant island, are when it comes to Trump and his fascist policies. As much as I have (unsuccessfully) tried to keep an open mind and un- derstand those who so blindly fawn over everything he does, I have now thrown in the towel. This is a cult which worships at the feet of a racist, arrogant bully; there is no other way to describe it. After I watched his press con- ference following the US attack on Venezuela and the kidnap- ping of the president and his wife, during which he bragged how he is going to run the country and plunder its rich oil resources, I read with disbelief the comments portraying him as a hero who has swooped in to save this Latin American country. Had I gone mad? Had I stepped into a parallel universe where it's perfectly normal for one country to take over an- other sovereign country and declare that it's going to 'run' it from now on? By the way it's perfectly pos- sible to be against a dictator like Maduro and also be against what Trump plans to do. And what would stop him from doing the same to an- other country? Those who thought I was over-reacting should take a look at what the people of Greenland are saying right now. They are terrified. It is also noteworthy that the immediate sardonic response of many Americans was: Since this is how we are getting rid of dictators now, can someone kidnap Trump and remove him too? It was funny, but in that hysterical, gallows humour kind of way when you see the world hurtling towards another war and are helpless to stop it. We hadn't yet stopped reel- ing from the implications of the Venezuelan takeover when we were hit between the eyes with the footage of a woman being shot point blank by an ICE agent because she was try- ing to manoeuvre her car away from the scene of a protest. Of course, in yet another dysto- pian moment, there are those who are trying to tell us that that is not what we saw at all. Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security Secretary, looking like a Barbie doll and ridiculously sporting a baseball cap, insisted that the Immigration and Cus- toms Enforcement (ICE) agent who shot and killed a 37-year- old woman in Minneapolis was acting in self-defence and was responding to an "act of do- mestic terrorism". She asserted that the woman, Renee Nicole Good, had used her vehicle "as a weapon" and had tried to run over the officer. Even if we take the preposter- ous leap that the spin doctors are expecting us to take and conclude that our own eyes have deceived us, a level-head- ed, well-trained agent would have shot a warning shot, or shot at her tyres to stop her rather than shooting the victim through an open car window, point blank in the face. Mur- der should not be the default position of these agents who have taken over America's cit- ies and streets. I know there are Maltese people right now whose own hatred of immigrants is the sole reason they are applaud- ing ICE. What they might not know, because they only read the headlines and watch snip- pets of Fox News, is that since Trump was re-elected, his mass deportation of undocumented immigrants has turned ICE into an out-of-control monster. According to a BBC report: "Agents have the power to stop, detain and arrest people they suspect of being in the US ille- gally. They can detain US citi- zens in limited circumstances, such as if a person interferes with an arrest, assaults an of- ficer, or ICE suspect the per- son of being in the US illegally. Despite this, according to news organisation ProPublica, there were more than 170 incidents during the first nine months of Trump's presidency in which federal agents held US citizens against their will." The vengeance with which ICE are going after people who look ethnic or who speak with a foreign accent means that even if you are in the States legally or were born there, they can come after you and detain you. It's naive and short-sighted to say, as some people have, that as long as you are not illegal you have nothing to worry about. You have to be living there, as the Maltese people interviewed by the Times are, to compre- hend the level of fear and terror which has been created. This is no longer about ques- tioning and rounding up peo- ple who are undocumented but has turned into a savage witch-hunt with agents who have been given unprecedent- ed powers where they can hold you at gunpoint, and as we saw, even kill you. Masked and heav- ily armed, they have stormed workplaces, shopping centres and neighbourhoods in scenes which bear a chilling and un- savoury resemblance to Nazi Germany. As for the oft-repeated claim that crime has gone down be- cause of ICE, "The Cato Insti- tute has been among a number of think-tanks and civil rights groups to point out that the statistics provided by the feder- al government have shown that significant numbers of people detained by ICE have not in- curred a criminal record since entering the US." A few days ago, Canada's CBC news ran a report pointing out that Donald Trump's immigra- tion crackdown is supposed to be targeting criminal illegal immigrants, but more Amer- ican citizens and legal immi- grants are being rounded up. It describes it as a virtual army and one of the largest military forces in the world. Speaking to people who have been dragged away by ICE agents the report, entitled ICE Raids And Fear Tactics, asks whether America is becoming a police state. Who is not in complete denial will view the scenes we are wit- nessing from the US and une- quivocally know the answer to that question. 3 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 11 JANUARY 2026 OPINION Josanne Cassar She has worked in the field of communications and journalism for the last 30 years What some Maltese people don't get: ICE would come after them too Renee Nicole Good was shot dead by an ICE agent in Minneapolis Speaking to people who have been dragged away by ICE agents the report, entitled ICE Raids And Fear Tactics, asks whether America is becoming a police state