Dr. Michael GavinOn the morning of May 21, 2025, Sara Lizbeth Garcia opened her Long Island, New York, apartment door to find Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials waiting. They were looking for a previous resident, but they detained Garcia anyway—despite her clean record, her 3.9 GPA at Suffolk Community College, and her proper pursuit of citizenship. After two months separated from her family at a privately-run detention center in South Louisiana—owned by conglomerates, who contributed significantly to Trump’s campaigns and have benefitted from governmental agencies’ dropping cases against them that were brought forth during the Biden administration—Garcia “agreed” to self-deport.
Garcia’s story reflects a troubling pattern affecting college students across the country. Some have been detained due to mistaken identities. Others were arrested while exercising their First Amendment rights to protest. But the damage extends beyond individual cases—a pervasive chill that now affects families, institutions, and communities nationwide.
Families increasingly fear going to work or school. Educational institutions are abandoning their missions under the guise of “institutional neutrality,” censoring newspapers and curricula. Media outlets and law firms have settled questionable lawsuits with the administration to avoid financial ruin.
The pattern is clear: through immigration policy, budget cuts, lawsuits, and executive orders, the rights of Black, brown, and LGBTQ Americans are under systematic attack. As of May 30, 2025, the majority of ICE detainees come from Mexico, South America, and India. The Supreme Court has even entertained arguments challenging birthright citizenship—despite the 14th Amendment’s clear language that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
When protests erupted nationwide, the National Guard was deployed. When institutions maintained their diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, their presidents faced investigation. Speech, thought, and action aimed at creating equality now meet the full force of government opposition.
National media coverage reveals three fundamental problems in how we discuss these issues. First, the traditional political framework obscures the crisis’s true scope. Immigration restrictions, DEI program cuts, book bans, healthcare limitations, food benefit reductions, and defunding of CBS, NPR, and PBS may seem like separate issues. In reality, they’re interconnected policies that define who belongs in America and whose voices shape our national imagination. Together, they represent an effort to replace our diverse democracy with a narrow vision based on myth and conspiracy rather than fact.
Second, media coverage lacks historical context. Separating children from parents isn’t just immigration policy—it echoes slavery-era practices designed to dehumanize and control entire populations. Book banning contradicts principles championed by thinkers from Benjamin Franklin to John F. Kennedy to Judy Blume and Sherman Alexie. State control of media resembles tactics used by history’s most oppressive regimes. By treating these as isolated political disputes rather than historical patterns, media coverage minimizes their true significance.
Third, reducing each policy to an isolated political win or loss encourages dangerous complacency. People often remain passive until an issue directly affects their daily lives. During Trump’s first term, nearly 5,500 children were separated from their families. The administration’s Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping laid the groundwork for state legislators to eliminate academic programs challenging American mythologies. For four years between Trump administrations, state legislatures passed laws targeting citizens’ sense of belonging. Yet it wasn’t until elite universities came under attack that they mounted significant resistance to this anti-educational, anti-democratic movement.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Rapper Chuck D observed that “minds are the real estate of the 21st century.” Both understood that the battle for belonging involves both policy and imagination—how we understand our past, present, and future.
The constitutional rights fundamental to a democratic society are under assault. This assault began by targeting Black, brown, and LGBTQ Americans while others stood by. Now the racialized hierarchy shaping current policy and budget decisions threatens everyone. Our response must center on recognizing our interconnectedness and working toward a more inclusive, not less inclusive, society.
The stakes could not be higher. Democracy itself hangs in the balance.
Dr. Michael Gavin is President of Delta College.
