Happy Friday. From my new Vlog (video-blog).I delivered this talk yesterday at an Austin SDS rally in support of the rights and fair treatment of immigrant children, students, and families. It is beyond shameful and truly appalling—to learn of what is happening in our country to Guatemalan children. It's nightmarish. Prayers and activism needed.
I have blogged on this previously as follows:
Judge Blocks Trump's Late-Night Deportation of Hundreds of Guatemalan Children, Democracy Now!
Secret Attempted Deportation of Close to 700 Guatemalan Children Blocked by Federal Judge, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.
Child Abuse Disguised as Policy: We Will Not Be Silent
By
Angela Valenzuela
September 4, 2025
Friends, compañeros, hermanas y hermanos,
Over the holiday weekend, something shocking happened. The Trump administration tried—in secret—to deport hundreds of Guatemalan children. Children!
As many as 700, according to The Guardian. Some were already being loaded onto planes before a federal judge, Justice Sparkle Sooknanan, was woken up at 2:30 in the morning by attorneys at the National Immigration Law Center to stop this cruel operation.
Without her intervention, terrified children would have been expelled in the dead of night—denied their legal right to seek asylum, stripped of protections guaranteed under U.S. law, and sent back to danger.
They were denied due process. They were denied dignity.
Let’s call this what it is: child abuse disguised as policy.
This is the politics of disappearance—erasing children’s bodies, silencing their voices, banning the truths that they hold, and to which we as a polity should know.
A government willing to traumatize the innocent to score political points.
A system that chains children in handcuffs and leg irons, while claiming to defend freedom.
There is no justice in this.
There is no morality in this.
There is no excuse for this.
We’ve seen cruelty from this administration before. But this attempt stands out. Look closely and you’ll see the fingerprints of Trump’s advisor Stephen Miller—an architect of pain—who has made it his mission to torment immigrant families, and who peddles the poisonous lie that immigrant children are a threat rather than a blessing.
History teaches us something here. Just as Joseph Goebbels weaponized propaganda in Nazi Germany, Miller has weaponized fear and lies—conditioning the public to accept, even rationalize, the abuse of vulnerable children.
And here’s the thing: we still don’t even know the whole story. We don’t know the ages of these children. Were toddlers among them? Were their advocates, attorneys, or guardians notified? We don’t know. What we do know is this: children who already survived trauma and the long, perilous journey north were retraumatized—ripped from safety and thrust back into danger.
And let’s be clear: these children are not a burden. They are not criminals. They are not a threat.
They are sons and daughters. They’re DREAMers and doers. Future nurses, teachers, leaders.
The only real threat is the Trump administration’s agenda of fear, cruelty, and racism—a deliberate attempt to turn our nation’s back on its promise of justice.
That’s why we are here today. Because we cannot, and we will not, remain silent.
We are here to say: No child is illegal. No human being is illegal.
We are here to say: Not one more deportation in our name.
Such actions are unworthy of a nation that claims to stand for equality, justice, and due process.
And we are here to demand dignity, protection, and justice for immigrant children and their families.
Now raise your voices with me:
Say it loud, say it clear—
Immigrant children are welcome here!
Guatemalan children are welcome here!
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