Cynical genius of deporting "good guys."

No one is safe. That is the point.

Trump understands the body language of fear.

When ICE shows up to deport Narciso Barranco, a landscaper with no criminal record — a man whose three sons serve in the Marines — it shocks us. That shock is exactly what Trump wants. Deporting “good” people is not an accident. It’s a deliberate message: No one is safe.

Viral video: Barranco was tgaken down and beatgen

L.A. Times

Trump’s immigration strategy is built on fear. It’s not just about stopping criminals. It’s about making life so unpredictable and frightening that undocumented immigrants decide to leave on their own or never come at all. It's working. Illegal crossings are at record lows. By targeting those who seem the most sympathetic, he spreads dread more effectively than any wall ever could.

But Trump doesn’t stop at deportation. He sends people back to places like Salvadoran prisons, notorious for violence and squalor. Photos of overcrowded cells and terrified detainees ricochet through immigrant communities. They become ghost stories whispered at kitchen tables and among work crews at farms and construction sites: “Don’t get caught — look what happens if you do.”

Kristi Noem: "You will be removed and you will be prosecuted."

Trump justifies actions that seem astonishingly cruel and manages to get Supreme Court sign-off on it. Instead of deporting the person back to their home country, Trump's administration sends them to Libya, penniless, friendless, a failed state in civil war where the deportee doesn't speak the language. That is something to dread.

It is cruel but effective. Trump is giving reason for people to “self-deport.” Families hide deeper in the shadows. This is strategy, not chaos. It’s cold, effective, and deeply cynical. Trump uses cruelty as a branding tool. The randomness and severity of these deportations prove to his supporters that he’s serious, that he’ll do “whatever it takes.”

Democrats are left sputtering about fairness and American values. They are forced into defensive arguments and moral outrage, putting them on the side they don't want to be on, the side of justifying lawless presence in the U.S. (They are illegal, but they are good guys.) It undercuts their argument against Trump's flagrant lawlessness as regards presidential power.

Meanwhile, the spectacle delights Trump’s base. He is doing what he promised. He's ridding the country of "illegals." Liberal tears aren’t a side effect — they’re part of the plan. The cruelty isn’t a bug; it’s a feature designed to keep Democrats off balance and to stoke the fervor of his supporters.

This approach is undeniably clever from a political standpoint. It keeps the media hooked. It fires up supporters who want to see “toughness” on immigration. It forces Democrats to react instead of setting the agenda. The strategy is designed not just to enforce laws but to humiliate and terrorize. There is a reason people are shown being frog-walked and heads shaved in the El Salvador prison Kristi Noem visited. Romans nailed people to crosses and Southerners lynched Black people because it sent a message not to get out of line. It was display. It is body language. See what we do! We have the power. The message:

We slaughter animals for food taking care that it is painless and humane, but you, you people here illegally, you we frighten, humiliate, and make miserable, on purpose. We are after you. We will spring when you least expect it, when you are going to court to finish your citizenship application, when you are at church. We make things harder than they need to be because we are sending a message that we want you gone.

We -- the United States of America with a government that we elected -- weaponize cruelty. This isn't a good look. It corrodes the country’s moral fabric. But the actions are on display for us to see, too. It isn't seen just by immigrants here illegally. We, the citizens of the USA, do this to people. We slowly normalize it. This is who we are.

It’s psychological warfare. Trump’s tactic of targeting “good” people isn’t a flaw in the system — it is the system he wants. That’s the brilliance, and the horror.

If things work out and America gets through this political and moral rough patch, in a generation American Christians will feel some remorse, I hope. This wasn't what Jesus would do, was it? It was the opposite in every respect. Surely some people --possibly evangelicals -- will speak against it from a Christian viewpoint. As with the internment of Americans of Japanese ethnicity in World War II, we will look back and regret it. We will remember this the way people see museum photographs of signs for separate drinking fountains for Whites and "Colored People" and feel embarrassed when we talk about it with our children.

But not yet. We are still in the accumulation-of-guilt stage. We are being cruel because it is giving America what it thinks it wants.