“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
If Dr. King were alive today, he would likely consider the state of the nation to be the beginning of a nightmare.
As we reflect on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, it has become blatantly clear that the teachings of Dr. King mean nothing to the current presidential administration.
About a year into President Donald Trump’s second term, the questions of who has rights, who is considered human, and what direction the United States is heading in have never been more terrifyingly clear.
“Make America Great Again.” A phrase that should invoke hope and inspire millions does the very opposite. Under the current administration, it has morphed, now representing the executive office’s apparent aim of regressing the United States into a homogeneous society, and therefore depriving America of the diversity that has so long been its most defining characteristic.
With the Trump administration having set a goal of 1 million deportations a year, or about 2,750 deportations every single day, the number of daily detentions has doubled, with more than 605,000 individuals being deported by the Trump administration in 2025. While not a historic number–778,000 people were deported in former President Joe Biden’s first year–the way the Trump administration has gone about deporting people is uniquely inhumane.
Unprecedented in its ambition, President Trump’s immigration policy has been characterized by that visceral image that all too many people have come to know and fear: that of a masked ICE agent, face covered as to protect their anonymity, going into the streets of predominantly non-white neighborhoods and questioning, detaining, and eventually deporting people.
Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, and now Minneapolis, all cities known for their large immigrant populations, have become focal points of the President’s deportation efforts, with the President going so far as to militarize the National Guard to enforce his agenda in Los Angeles and Portland.
Supporters of the administration’s policies argue they are fulfilling campaign promises and enforcing existing law, not targeting people based on race or ethnicity. They contend that immigration enforcement protects American workers and national sovereignty, but with multiple cases of people with legal status being both detained and deported (such as Kilmar Ábrego García), the merit of those arguments must be called into question.
According to official ICE records, José Castro Rivera, Maksym Chernayak, Mare Ange Blaise, Genry Ruiz Guillen, Jesus Molina-Veya, and Abelardo Avellaneda-Delgado are just a few of the people who have died while detained in ICE facilities under the Trump Administration.
According to TRAC (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse), a nonpartisan data organization at Syracuse University that obtains immigration enforcement data through Freedom of Information Act requests, approximately 71% of ICE detainees had no prior criminal conviction on record. So, with there being more than 56,000 people who have been detained, that means that approximately 35,000 people in detention centers have no prior criminal record.
While immigration officials argue that detainment is necessary for immigration enforcement, unlawful presence is a civil violation, not a criminal offence–a detail raising questions as to whether or not civil infractions warrant incarceration-like conditions.
Dr. King was an individual characterized by a distinct feature: his commitment to advancing civil rights and human dignity for all people, particularly those most marginalized. Being instrumental in the formation and popularization of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, his life’s work was a massive part in the end of segregation, a piece of legislation that not only benefited African Americans, but also directly improved the quality of life for all people in America.
Beyond Dr. King, numerous revolutionary figures have labored, sweated, cried, and even lost their lives to advance the pursuit of equal rights for all. African-American figures like Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and countless others worked tirelessly to provide the rights that the Trump administration actively seeks to rescind.
So, as we reflect on the legacy of a man who gave his very life to work for the advancement and equality of all marginalized people, we as a society must confront the brutal truth. Our current government doesn’t seem to care.
