Pain after suffering

Za "Time" from New York

On the railing of the West 234th Street overpass in the Bronx, above the endless line of cars stretching down the highway toward Connecticut, a tattered Ukrainian flag flutters in the spring wind, while America, in its historical turn, makes new friends with countries that do not resemble previous allies. Their place is taken by countries like El Salvador, whose president accepts immigrants who are deported from the US without any legal procedures, which is why the administration Donald Trump is increasingly entering into open conflict with the judiciary, although this does not prevent the members of the Immigration Police from searching the streets of New York for those who could end up across the ocean, in the infamous Center for Countering Terrorism. At the same time, this battle is not isolated, because it is White House at war with well-known law firms, the media and elite universities, while the savings of citizens that they painstakingly collected for years are melting on the stock markets, due to the customs war, in order to have something to live on when they can no longer work, with new warnings from experts about the imminent slowdown of economic growth in the country.

Unlike previous crises, which were mostly caused by external circumstances, this one was caused by one man.

"If you hire clowns, you have a circus," wrote Thomas Friedman in the "New York Times".

photo: ap

CONSERVATIVE COURT DAM

While the old order is crumbling, something still stands firm, regardless of its conservative majority – the Supreme Court. Despite sharp internal divisions, most Americans believe that the president must respect the decisions of this highest court. It was from that address that a new episode in the conflict between the executive and the judiciary, which is showering the citizens of America from the television screens, arrived.

The Supreme Court has blocked the latest attempt to deport a group of Venezuelans who were rounded up across America and transferred to the Bluebonnet Detention Center in north Texas. They were destined for a fate like the one that befell the 238 illegal immigrants who ended up in the Salvadoran CECOT (The Terrorism Confinement Center), based on the ancient US Law on Foreign Enemies from 1798, applied only three times, and the last time during the Second World War, when citizens of Japanese origin were arrested based on it. These deportations are the result of a US agreement with Salvadoran President Najib Bukele - who often calls himself the "coolest dictator in the world" - to receive US immigrants suspected of crime for a fee of six million dollars.

Not much is known about the fate of those people, but the life story of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was shipped out of America along with the others, despite the fact that he was protected from deportation based on a court decision from 2019, came to the fore. There is no media that has not dug up some detail from his immigrant history: from the threats he received from Salvadoran gangs when he was a young man, his escape to America, his struggle for survival, hard work at construction sites, taking care of his children with special needs, to his arrest in the deserted parking lot of "Hom Depo", suspicions that he is a member of the MS-13 gang, his wife's report of domestic violence and her tears in front of the cameras, with a request to return her husband from one of the worst prisons in the world. the world. Tragic stories always have their own peculiarities, while others are more or less similar.

Estimates by the "Pew" Research Center say that twenty-four million stateless people currently live in America, half of whom do not have legal status. But this is nothing new - everyone in this country is an immigrant in one way or another. A considerable number of people from the Balkans come as part of the work and travel program for students, and some of them then stay and look for a way to legalize their status. The social networks that bring them together in New York are full of posts in which they are looking for any job or apartments in Astoria, where they sleep like in student dormitories in Belgrade.

Many eventually manage to get the necessary documents, but Kilmar Garcia was not so lucky. Despite the strict rules and procedures, the immigration system is occasionally unpredictable, like many other things. Often a lot depends on chance and luck. As in other occasions, decisions are made by people, and they are different, it all depends on who you bump into, just like in New York traffic.

Occasionally, cops will turn their heads the other way when they see someone running a red light in the middle of nowhere, but that's why you might find yourself in the chaos of Queens, where you're only watching to avoid hitting someone else or getting caught scooter riders going at cart speed on one-wheel boards, you see a red-blue rotating light behind you. Regardless of the fact that you stop as soon as you can, the policeman, after checking the driver's license, gets out of the car with a stack of papers, on top of which is written the penalty for "failing to comply with a lawful order", along with completely made-up offenses of a stained number plate, using headphones and a mobile device while driving, which can all lead to the suspension of the driver's license.

Of course, if he agrees to pay the fine and does not call a lawyer who will find a time for six hundred dollars when that policeman will not appear at the court hearing and absolve you of this injustice. When you complain to your New York friends about such things, they usually shake their heads with one word— Assholes. Unfortunately, Garcia may have run into such somewhere in Maryland, but at this point it stops being a personal story about a twenty-nine-year-old immigrant and his fate becomes a global metaphor for what is happening in America right now.

The Trump administration claims that he will never live in this country again because he is a "member of the MS-13 gang," a "terrorist," a "thug" and a "human trafficker," while the Supreme Court is asking the government to "facilitate his return to the United States." James Bousberg, the district judge for the District of Columbia, went a step further, threatening to prosecute state officials for ignoring his rulings, which could result in fines or even jail time. At this point, it is no longer just a matter of conflict between the two branches of government and questioning of principles checks and balances, which serves to prevent the abuse of power, is already becoming the tipping point that will decide the fate of America. Either the president, whoever he is, will respect the laws, or the laws will cease to apply. There is no third.

photo: ap

PRESIDENT OR LAW

Since his inauguration, Donald Trump has been completely focused on taking complete control of law enforcement agencies such as the police, military, FBI, CIA, and Department of Justice. When those who were endlessly loyal to him were appointed to those leadership positions - which was often their only qualification - his statements followed that "there are ways" that would allow him a third term and that he was "not kidding" when he said this, regardless of the fact that the Constitution expressly forbids anyone to be elected to the office of president more than twice. Soon after, came Trump's claims that "no law was needed", but that "the president says 'enough is enough'", with constant emphasis on how the voters gave him a mandate for everything he does.

When it comes to these things, he's right—a recent Washington Post poll finds that 90 percent of Americans support deporting illegal immigrants charged with violent crimes, and more than half agree with how the president is handling the problem. After all, Donald Trump was elected in large part because he promised "the largest deportation in the history of America" ​​and "an economic boom like no one has seen before", although there is no sign of the imminent arrival of either of these two things. Regardless of the fact that the beginning of the "golden era" was officially declared during the "liberation day", the president himself admits that the era of "mild disturbances" has entered due to the customs war with China. It was already hard enough for a huge number of citizens during the rule of the Democrats that they could easily bear additional "short-term pain" in the name of better days that, perhaps, will come someday. All the more so since leading economic experts, including those close to Republicans, believe that the breadth and depth of tariffs, in the way of restructuring the American economy, will cause disruptions that bring long-term pain.

The symbol of the American auto industry, Detroit's "Ford", has already informed sellers about the new prices.

OLDER THAN THE STATE

Essentially, Trump is doing everything he announced before the election. He repeatedly repeated that "the flow of money to schools that support Marxist attacks on American heritage and Western civilization itself will be cut off" and that funding will be cut off for any school or program that imposes "gender ideology or any inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on children", so it was only a matter of days before colleges would come under fire. Columbia was the first to break down and accept the demands of the state administration, thus showing that money is more important to it than academic freedom, but it was different with Harvard.

After demands for changes in management, hiring and curricula, with an emphasis on the fight against anti-Semitism and the president's remark that "everyone knows that Harvard has lost its way" and that it teaches the spread of "hate and stupidity", for which it should no longer receive financial aid, a clear answer came from Boston.

"No government - no matter which party is in power - should dictate what private universities can teach," Harvard President Alan Garber was more than clear, after which the university sued the government for freezing federal funds.

Just as the Democrats ran into a barrier of general citizen dissatisfaction, the administration of Donald Trump hit the walls of Harvard. After that, nothing will be the same, because from various sides there are calls for unification in civil resistance, which will not be partisan, because this is no longer a question of Democrats and Republicans, but a matter of limiting the spread of power.

There is no demand for a return to the previous situation, because it was unbearable for the vast majority of citizens, nor are the president's claims that the country had a problem with illegal immigrants who flooded the country, the deficit, placing identity issues above life issues or cases of anti-Semitism to which the faculties did not always react in the right way. It is a governing strategy that makes these problems even more difficult, complex and worse.

That's why the worn yellow-blue flag, no matter that it looks more and more like a rag, will not be replaced by new blue-white symbols of another country. If one already has no internal brakes, and there is no one in the government or Congress, as during the first term, to prevent what goes against the basic values ​​of American society, then others will be found to set the limits. It's easy to get to that place as soon as you get past the unbearable traffic on I-78 towards Connecticut, where, a little further north, stands the building of an elite institution that is much older than the state itself - and therefore all its presidents.