The article highlights the unsettling experiences of individuals affected by the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It draws parallels between these modern events and the memories of those who lived under oppressive regimes, like Argentina and communist Romania. The author emphasizes the trauma caused by arbitrary arrests and the pervasive climate of fear engendered by unmarked car abductions. Moreover, it critiques the forced transportation of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, arguing that these actions represent a significant departure from traditional deportation practices, stripping individuals of due process rights.
It's the unmarked cars, a friend who grew up under an Argentine dictatorship said. He had watched the video of Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil's abduction.
I never realized until this moment how much fear I carried with me from my childhood in communist Romania... Arrests were arbitrary and every time the doorbell rang, I started to shiver.
It's the catastrophic interruption of daily life, as when a Tufts University graduate student, Rumeysa Ozturk, was grabbed on a suburban street by a half-dozen plainclothes agents.
These are not even deportations, in the way we typically think of them. Rather than being sent to their country of origin, Venezuelans were sent to El Salvador, where they are being imprisoned, indefinitely, without due process.
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