In a move to surely shake up every area of government and American society, the US Department of Homeland Security is said to be gearing up for a ‘gangbusters’ style corralling of hundreds of illegal immigrant families who had flocked to the US since early 2015.
Not since the 1940s and 1920s has the US engaged in such a roundup of persons. In the 1920s, the ‘Gangbusters’ as they were called, rounded up thousands of organized crime figures and associates and threw them in jails. In the 1940s it was the rounding up of Japanese Americans and associates to internment camps due to the fear they would be allies of the Japanese Empire at which the US was at war with. In the mid 1950’s a roundup of immigrants resulted from a program entitled “Operation Wetbacks” where anywhere from 250,000 to 1 million Mexicans and others were gathered up and deported.
This announcement means that by early January 2016, entire households that could reach well over 100,000 people would be gathered up and deported. These families had already been told to leave the US and had refused. Most came from turmoil in their home countries hoping for a chance to survive in the US against the brutality and poverty they faced in their homelands.
The DHS, headed by Secretary Jeh C. Johnson would have enormous resources to carry out the task that has been ordered due to the detention of so many illegal immigrants in detention centers throughout the US. Johnson, appointed by Obama, is well heeled in governmental law and procedure and this operation will be one of the most challenging and emotional actions the US has ever undertaken.
The critics will state that these people fled to the US to escape certain death or misery in their Central American countries where violence continues to arise. From global drug and human trafficking, to political strife and organized crime, these illegal immigrants are now between a rock and a hard place with nowhere to go.
The final order hasn’t been given yet, but pressure is on from the public and politicians to do something. So far the issue has been neglected by the federal government for almost 50 years with both political parties having granted amnesty and other accommodations instead of cleaning up the countries where these people flee from. Critics also point out that the US has spent trillions in handling crises in the Middle East when in their own backyard they could have upended the criminal political countries that have caused distress and disarray throughout Central and South America.
The US is also taking the heat for being responsible for the massive global drug trade that fuels these conflicts. The War on Drugs is a major failure and the money from the underworld feeds political strife, poverty, and misery throughout the Western hemisphere. Now, a massive movement of poor persons into harm’s way is the only solution as fighting the drug lords and political criminals is not on the agenda of the petroleum industry controlled political basis of the US’ lawmakers.
It will be a monumental task to undertake and the DHS will either survive or fall on its sword, but the truth remains, it will have bloody hands at the end of the day and it’s going to take the American people to wake up and bring the soap to clean them.
