On Targeted Deportations: They hunt in broad daylight.
Beginning with a journal entry from a few days ago:
everything is upside down.
I did not know what it would be like to watch my— to witness… people that feel like my own growing flesh vanish in the night. in the afternoon! in the broad, bold, daylight. I remember when my grandmother came out of the basement. I felt like I hadn’t seen her in the light since we picked her up at the airport— those days of bright white gap tooth grins and African safari calling cards. She came from the war and went promptly into my mother’s basement, into a different kind of hiding. The day she came into the light, the golden Colorado afternoon, I began to associate hope with the brilliance of the bold sun. She had her papers. Finally. My grandmother became a United States citizen, and so she was not in the basement anymore. And so, there was no more need to hide. We all laughed in the light.
The history I have read said they come when we are sleeping. And that was true for Suri, when he was taken from his three kids and his wife. That was a Monday night. Yet: they kidnapped Khalil in broad daylight. They took Ozturk off the sidewalk on a Boston spring afternoon. And now they hunt for my friend, Taal. And everyone knows. They hunt in the light now. I thought– I know that it’s foolish… the leftover hope of a seven-turned-nine year old who waited years to see her grandmother in the light. But I thought... I had hoped that the papers and the light denoted some… safety? I suppose. Foolish, I know. It’s just that… he is my friend. His thoughts shape my own. He does not know me but his disappearance would feel akin to my grandmother without ther gap in her teeth. To the world without afternoon. Everything askew, uncanny… upside down. Nothing quite right.
That is where I feel frightened, where I did not before.
They now hunt in the light.
introductions
I wrote the above entry on a shared journaling session I had with a handful of internet strangers (and some internet friends). I enjoy lives that exist in liminal space, an “if you catch it, you catch it.” Horrid for my existence as an ‘influencer,’ phenomenal for my existing as a corporal, fearful being. The above entry fell out of my pen. I expected to write about my usuals: mortality, contending with the death of loved ones, incarceration, fear of success. We played modern african jazz music and journaled to ourselves for a few minutes. I didn’t realize how frightened I’ve been watching non-violent advocates for Palestine be hunted one by one until I slowed down to consider the shape of the fear.
Absent is the grief of a stratified violation where I am enraged and upset and abhorred by violence against people I shaped myself to love. We in the States, especially those of us that grew up here, are not naturally oriented towards those in the colonized world. You have to make yourself like that. The colonized world is that world that is always considered “up for grabs” by our superpower government. And that is by design, of course: it is easier to commit atrocities against people who are not quite, but almost as human as us. So that anger that you have to shape yourself into when those people are violated— that anger takes training and maintenance. When it is honed well, it causes disillusionment and a dissolution from the mission of the United States.
The fear I feel is quite personal. It goes like this: I wonder how long I can go before my mother gets a knock on her door. I wonder how long it will take to call my citizenship into question. Remember [redacted because I do still fear for this person's safety so I cannot say this sentiment on the internet]?What happens now that they hunt in broad daylight?
Section I: Who’s in a nation?
I received this comment on an instagram post discussing the next phase of fascism in the United States.
The comment comes as a critique of calling the United States a fascist project expanding the agenda of the foundations it was built upon. I completely agree with the assessment that fascist governments center national welfare. I disagree that fascism is somehow inherently incompatible with late-stage capitalism or world-wide militaristic imperialism.
Let’s define some terms so we can all orient to what we’re discussing.
Fascism (noun)
A system of government that exalts the race and nation above the individual and places authority of the nation with one dictatorial leader and an autocracy (where absolute power is held by the central government). Characteristics include: extreme militarism,
movement away from direct electoral democracy,
swift, forceful (and often violent) suppression of dissent,
forced (re)order within economic and social exchange.
Definition sources: Brittanica, Merriam-Webster, American Heritage Dictionary
Fascism does absolutely work to exact the nation above the individual and protect the nation at every cost, including the rest of the world’s well-being and homeostasis. In writing this, I am wondering aloud who is The Nation within the US project, and who is here to provide cheap labor to uphold said Nation? Who is here to enjoy The Nation’s supremacy and who is simply here to enforce the rules of The Nation and support its expansion without ever becoming a beneficiary?
Then, speaking of militaristic expansion…
Imperialism (noun)
The maintenance of extended political, social, and/or economic power of one nation over other nation states, often by direct acquisition/annexing of land.
Imperialism is a policy, a political position of advocacy, and an action all at once. So then: are fascism and imperialism truly opposed? Do they not often go hand in hand?
Source Definitions: Britannica, Cambridge Dictionary
Late-stage capitalism (noun)
Colloquially used to describe the phase of capitalism that began after the industrial revolution and the globalization of the economy in the 21st century, this phrase was coined by Werner Sombar, a German historical economist after the deprivations seen post World War I, however the existence of “late-stage” capitalism has been referred to as early as Karl Marx’s final publication within his three-part volume Capital: A Critique of Political Economy in 1894. Characterized by: multinational companies, wealth concentration in the hands of the few, and routine economic disasters.
Source Definitions: The Conversation, Merriam-Webster, The Socialist Program (ft. Prof. Richard Wolff)
Video transcript:
Everything that is done by, whether it's President Biden or it would have been President Harris or now it is President Trump— everything they can do as politicians is limited and constrained by the ups and downs of the economic system they preside over. In their enthusiasm and in their partisanship, they blame each other for almost everything.
Mr. Trump this week, or last week, famously blamed Mr., uhh— the former president, (I'm trying to be nice here) for the egg prices. You know, there's no limit to all of this kind of craziness, but here's the reality: Capitalism is a system that has been unstable from its beginning in the 17th century. Wherever capitalism has settled in as the dominant economic system across the globe in the United States, everywhere, it has brought with it what is politely called "the business cycle," what is less politely called recessions, inflations, upturns, downturns, crises, crashes— I could go on. Our vocabulary is very rich because we cannot shake this disease. And that's what it is! It's a disease of capitalism.
I do not believe any of the above are mutually exclusive; rather, I believe that the interrelated nature of capitalism, fascism and imperialism describes the foundation of the United States— a land made for wealthy, white, land-owning men, who were eager to exterminate and enslave people in an effort to secure cheap labor (for their capitalistic world design) and expand their access to natural resources (thus, becoming the ‘police force of the world,’ as the commenter refers to— however I mean ‘police’ less in the marketing “Protect and Serve” way, and more of the “actually the Supreme Court said we don’t have to do all that, we will fuck you up over our property" way). This whole world boils down to labor and land; we manage our constituents as best as we can.
I do agree that the fascist nation states invests time, energy, and resources towards maintaining the integrity of the state’s benefits for its selected beneficiaries. The reason I feel the need to point out different face of fascism is not because the fascism is new. The US has always been a fascist project. I point out the fascism as it takes on a new face because the beneficiaries of The Nation are changing rapidly.
Section II (or really, Section 1.5): Ahhh, global liberalism. <3
There was once a time where nation states needed to appear moral. That’s where we get the language of ‘human rights.’ Now, as a side note, I have often said, why are there people who decide who is human and what rights are and what rights can be given and taken away depending on whether you have a nation state there to protect you? ...But I digress. A nation state assumes responsibility for bestowing rights upon their citizens, which function as (allegedly) universal safeties they can guarantee to protect for their civilian populace. A moral nation might also allow for upward mobility, right? That’s what capitalism is supposed to be: freedom to move up the ladder. Even if one came from the humblest circumstances, the protection of rights would guarantee some safety and the opportunity for advancement would allow for that desire, that soft power, the idolization and idealization of a nation, the pride in being a part of a nation greater than them... a love for the hand that giveth and taketh away.
We are in a conundrum. How does an overextended empire, with a growing internal population of racially marginalized people, protect everyone? What happens when key stakeholders want protections for their assets, which are at odds with the protections the labor force requires?
A roll of the dice. The nation state contracts, prioritizes, makes budget cuts— this time, it was to the local farmers that grow the food for kid’s in-school lunches and food banks. Papers that once protected people are now meaningless; why was a green card holder stripped naked for interrogation and detained without access to his medicine for… going though an airport? They had to take him to the hospital. His family is working with the German consulate on his release. Court orders that once protected people are now meaningless; why was Dr. Rasha Alawieh, Lebanese kidney specialist and assistant professor at Brown University, deported before her hearing despite the fact that U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin demanding her right to a trial? For expressing support for the spiritual teachings of Hezbollah leader and Lebanese giant, Hassan Nasrallah?
They're not citizens anyways. Right? That’s what we’re supposed to say. Right?
In practical terms: I am only as safe as those on the outside of the margins. Not just out of the interconnectedness of everything, not just in the metaphorical sense of being part of the same bodies, the same breathing ecosystems— in the very literal, imperialistic sense that the borders on The Nation are closing. Under white supremacist imaginations, I was never supposed to hold citizenship. Trump has issued via executive order a call to end birthright citizenship. The game shifts; someone yells yahtzee!; our world moves accordingly.
If the contraction of the nation jolts you into feeling fear— good. At least you are feeling. If the kidnapping of people who have done everything “right”— immigrated to the country in previously approved-of fashions, have papers and attorneys and visas in order, and were tied to respectable academic institutions— if their handcuffing and abduction into unmarked cars in the broad and bold daylight strikes fear in you, then good. That means you recognize yourself in them. You are fearful because something in your body understands, intrinsically, that any distance between them and you is fabricated, falsified by an illegitimate government on stolen land.
conclusions
I oftentimes forget that I am considered radical. I don’t consider myself particularly radical; I consider myself someone who spends a lot of time drawing parallels. I like connecting dots. Making constellations out of our many points of fear equips me to tell stories which allow me to be bold, even when boldness is neither comforting nor reassuring.
As we talked about our fears on this liminal-space live, one of the participants (929etc.) said that all their fears were selfish. I am here to commiserate. All my fears are selfish too! As the nation contracts, my personhood expands. I feel like one big, congealed, Frankensteinian monster. I feel like the jailing of Momodou Taal will disorient me from my daily reality. I think of him often, throughout my day. I buy fish for iftar this morning. Can he still go to iftar parties? That’s how Ozturk was taken. Does he have body guards? Would it even help or would a gaggle of brothers become fugitives for resisting arrest from plain clothes, so-called officers? I press my dress for Sunday. Will he go out to celebrate eid? Is it safe? Does it matter anymore, about the illusion of safety, if they can hunt in the light? This is the point, right? To make you so afraid, night and day, of capture that you are imprisoned anyhow.
Then: how far does it go? How far do the rings of “terrorist supporter” travel? I am, in digital ink, signing my name on where my loyalties lie. My fears are as selfish as yours. I am not fearful in an esoteric sense. I wash my hair and think, what if Taal is captured today? I have to travel to see my mom for her surgery. How long, feasibly, until my US passport gets me detained at a border? Some time, right? Birth right citizenship has not been repealed yet. But then… who’s to say someone will wait? How long until I am shown my social media posts in a court of law… wait no, before that—in an interrogation room adjacent to some hole with bars for doors as I am told I am being tried for treason? What once felt silly—what will all these words do?— now feels… tangible. I want to believe I am being dramatic. I would love nothing more actually than to believe that I am being dramatic.
I connect the dots, this time, in the shape of an orange tree. They are in bloom, you know. Mango season fast approaches. I draw bravery in this way: I am, among many things, a writer. However frightened I am, I am born to bear fruit.
I end with a post-script: at the time of writing, Ramadan was concluding and Momodou Taal was still, at least to public knowledge, in the United States. At the time of publishing (April 05 2025), Taal fled the United States. I am reminded of my auntie dequi’s refrain when discussing the plights of political prisoners, when she would remind me not to forget those that were exiled. “Exile is death,” she would say. Well. I am always in the habit of speaking libations over our dead: materially, socially, corporally. I wish you safe passage and easy return, Taal.
Glory to the axis of resistance. Glory to the martyrs. Glory to this new class of political prisoners and political exiles. Glory to the God of the Oppressed, the one at the lynching tree and the one under the rubble— I no longer ask for salvation. I ask for steadfast strength. I wanna hold this new world in my hands. Me. In the meantime: may every battle— naval, legal, intellectual, every battle for survival— be moved in our favor from the steadfastness of our beliefs and the work we do to bring those beliefs into fruition.
I hope the work of your day passes through your hands with ease.
or, better said,
peace.
ig.
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