Two weeks ago, NC State lost two members of the Pack to the Trump Administration’s ‘crackdown’ on immigration and student visas. 

As a community, we should be disgusted and angry by this arbitrary injustice without cause. As a country, we should feel mortified by what we’ve created — and what’s next. 

By all accounts, the chancellor included, these students had done absolutely nothing wrong. The State Department’s vague statement on the matter, which refused to comment and then implied the students broke the law, is only further confirmation that this action wasn’t grounded in any legal reality. The White House is constantly flexing how many people they’re deporting, publicizing crude images and AI depictions of people crying in handcuffs.

But you want us to believe that “privacy concerns” and “confidentiality” prevent the administration from telling us why students have had their lives upended?

If you’ve read the news recently, you’ve surely seen this isn’t an isolated incident. This is happening all over the country.

Fulbright scholars. Students deported for speeding tickets. Mahmoud Khalil.

Two from NC State. One student from App State. Three from Duke. Six from Chapel Hill. Six from UNC Charlotte. 

A few months ago, I wrote a column where an adjoining cartoon compared Trump and Mark Robinson to Hitler. Both the comment section and my DMs were filled with outrage of such a radical depiction.

The comparison seems to get more apt with every passing hour. 

People who are in this country legally are being ripped off the streets and thrown into vans by law enforcement wearing plain clothing. Does that strike you as Nazi-esque?

The purpose of these deportations and many of the actions from the Trump Administration is to simply intimidate as many people as possible into falling in line with what they ask. They are not looking to better our country or make it ‘safer’ through the apparatus of our legal system. Anyone who has the resources and head space to take these individual cases to court would win. 

But most people don’t have the finances or the time to spend years working through the backed up immigration courts. The Trump Administration is trying to get people they don’t like to flinch in compliance and leave on their own accord, and it’s working. 

Never mind the legal semantics because they don’t care about the law or what’s right and wrong. A Maryland man who had committed no crime was deported by mistake, and now those responsible refuse to administer his return. 

These deportations are random and not meticulously thought through, as any such drastic policy measure should be. Then again, nothing this administration does seems to be very calculated. 

Forgive the cliche, but for the love of God, immigrants are what make this country great. It is a core tenet of what the United States is and always has been. France is — literally — asking for the Statue of Liberty back. 

Especially in college communities, international students are simply what make American universities the prestigious institutions they are. Fostering the integration of global perspectives is a pillar of this country’s ethos, and universities are the heart of this atmosphere. 

Beyond the humane and societal good, international students are an enormous financial contributor to our university. There’s a reason the General Assembly and NC State are so keen to expand the College of Engineering and the international participants with it. Do you know how bad things have to be for NC State — the most infamously apolitical educational institution in the state — to make a statement criticizing a national political policy? 

So now we’ve lost two members of our community. People who paid tens of thousands of dollars and travelled halfway around the world to come get an education in Raleigh, North Carolina. And the signal is clear from the Trump Administration: we don’t want you here. 

It’s ignorance, it’s stupidity, it’s immoral by every possible standard. And it was voted for by the majority of Americans. 

Well, the economy might be crashing, egg prices continue to soar, the United States’ international hegemony and soft power is hemorrhaging by the minute, our president cuddles up to any dictator on the map, our military intelligence is compromised by sheer incompetence, but thank the heavens we don’t have a Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I guess!

There are no bounds to the persecution this administration will pursue. Academics, journalists, immigrants, government workers, scientists, judges, political rivals. Professors specializing in fascism are fleeing the country. Do you see what’s happening right before your eyes? 

I co-wrote a column a few years ago about Ron DeSantis and the Republican “Stop Woke” law. My editor at the time wanted to insert the famous Martin Niemöller quote into the top of the article. I didn’t protest its inclusion, but I wasn’t sure it was the comparison that was called for. I feel more a fool each passing day to have hesitated. 

– – –

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”

— Martin Niemöller