Commentary: Citizens are finally getting it: No one's safe from Trump's deportation ambitions

"Ever since Donald J. Trump descended from a gold escalator at his eponymous Manhattan tower in 2015, he has sworn that a scorched-earth campaign against "illegal immigrants" would make life safer for Americans and that citizens had nothing to worry about. Well. In 2025, Trump's campaign vow to target "the worst of the worst" was set aside in the name of not just going after all undocumented immigrants and limiting legal migration but even the goal of remigration - the idea that immigrants of any status should return to their home countries."

"Now, U.S. citizens Keith Porter Jr., shot at a Northridge apartment complex, and Renee Nicole Good, whose shooting sparked large protests in Minneapolis, are dead. ICE is about to storm American streets and neighborhoods with thousands of new recruits who received just eight weeks of training instead of what used to be five months. The Fourth Amendment bans the government from subjecting Americans from "unreasonable searches and seizures" yet we now have a vice president promising that they're forthcoming across the country."

""I think ... we're [going] to see those deportation numbers ramp up," JD Vance told Fox News' Jesse Watters, "as we get more and more people online working for ICE going from door-to-door." He repeated his boast the following day during a news conference while adding that the killing of Good - shot while trying to drive away from an agent who stood in front of her SUV during an immigration enforcement operation - was justified, adding that the 37-year-old mother of three was "brainwashed" and "radicalized in a very, very sad way.""

Donald Trump expanded immigration objectives from targeting the "worst" to broadly pursuing undocumented immigrants, limiting legal migration, and promoting remigration. Enforcement operations in 2025 and 2026 have coincided with the deaths of U.S. citizens Keith Porter Jr. and Renee Nicole Good. ICE is recruiting thousands of agents who received eight weeks of training rather than the previous five months. Senior officials, including the vice president and JD Vance, have signaled plans for ramped deportations and door-to-door enforcement. Constitutional protections under the Fourth Amendment are cited as being at risk amid promised widespread enforcement actions.

Read at Los Angeles Times