Jensy Machado is a naturalized U.S. citizen — and Hispanic. In 2024, he voted for Trump. This week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents pulled him over. They detained and handcuffed him — despite his protests that he was not an “illegal.”
Channel 4 Washington DC reported the events thus:
Machado said he was driving to work Wednesday with two other men when he was stopped by ICE agents on Lomond Drive in Manassas, a short distance from his home. He said he was confused by what was happening, why agents surrounded the pickup truck.
He said the agents said the name of a man they were seeking for a deportation order, someone who had given Machado’s home address. Machado told them that wasn’t his name — he didn’t know anyone by that name — and offered to show them his real ID compliant Virginia driver’s license.
Telemundo 44’s Rosbelis Quinoñez, first reported his story in a piece titled “Están siguiendo a los hispanos”: residente de Manassas denuncia detención arbitraria de ICE” (“They are following Hispanics”: Manassas resident denounces arbitrary ICE detention”). Machado told her:
“And they just got out of the car with the guns in their hands and say, turn off the car, give me the keys, open the window, you know. Everything was really fast.” (translated from Spanish — minus the swearing)
Machado explained that the ICE agents ignored his attempts to prove he was a citizen. This American also said that talking to ICE was unprofitable. They just assumed the brown man was lying.
“They didn’t ask me for any ID. I was telling the officer, if I can give him ID, but he said just keep my hands up, not moving. After that, he told me to get out of the car and put the handcuffs on me. And then he went to me and said how did I get into this country and if I was waiting for a court date or if I have any case.
And I told him I was an American citizen, and he looked at his other partner like, you know, smiling, like saying, can you believe this guy? Because he asked the other guy, ‘Do you believe him?'”
The Hispanic-American then explained why he voted for a guy who hates Hispanics.
“I voted for Trump last election but, because I thought it was going to be the things, you know, like … just go against criminals, not every Hispanic-looking, like – that they will assume that we are all illegals. That’s what they’re doing now, they’re just following Hispanic people.”
I have a message for Machado and every brown American. The agents of fascism totally see color. They will not give anyone the benefit of the doubt. The law may say every American is innocent until proven guilty. But that reassuring bromide, even when observed, merely applies in criminal trials. Brown Americans should be under no illusion that due process is a significant consideration for Trump’s Brown Shirts on the street.
Any American who thinks the law is de facto their ally should study Germany 1933-1945. I guarantee that the Third Reich’s racist enforcers, determined to do the Fuhrer’s bidding, detained many non-Jewish Germans and executed some.
While MAGA Hispanic Americans are discovering the stupidity of their vote for Trump, Trump-loving whites should not rest easy. If the Trump administration does what it wants to, some dyed-in-the-wool, straight, caucasian MAGAs will be mistaken for a disfavored group. The Nazis targeted, imprisoned, and killed LGBTQ; the physically and mentally disabled; gypsies; Poles and other Slavs; Jehovah’s Witnesses; and political opponents. Once you give a sadist a taste of blood, they will cast a wide net. Every citizen’s civil rights takes a beating.
Witness the utter arbitrariness of Stalin’s purges.
Even people who belong to no targeted group will not escape potential detention. The Stasi, communist East Germany’s secret police, encouraged neighbors to rat out neighbors, workers to turn in co-workers, and even children to spy on their parents. The police even took children from parents the state deemed ‘unfit.‘ Sadly, victims had no legal recourse.
I used to think comparisons of 21st-century America to 20th-century fascist regimes were overwrought. I no longer do. Americans cannot claim they will be immune from totalitarianism. In the 1930s, the German Bund held rallies attended by thousands across the country to express solidarity with the Nazis. That love affair only ended with Germany’s declaration of war on America after Pearl Harbor.
Now the American President is kissing a Russian tyrant’s ass (are there photos, or is it true love?). And MAGAs raised in the anti-Soviet Cold War era are embracing Stalin’s descendant. European strongmen and women are heroes to the deluded. Even America’s VP, JD Vance, is showering Germany’s neo-Nazis with administration love. It is a risky volte-face.
Anyone who thinks they will prosper under totalitarianism is betting their well-being on a shaky proposition. I am unaware of any democratic society that benefited from losing its democracy. However, autocrats who come to power in democratic nations have always been able to rely on history-ignorant morons to grease their skids. Those limited thinkers are endlessly capable of thinking it won’t happen to them.
I hope that Machado and the other Hispanic Americans who voted for their own oppression wake up to the reality of Trump’s ambition. I wish the same for Black and LGBTQ citizens who believe that racist and homophobic leaders are in their best interest. I also wonder what Muslim Americans think of Trump’s Gaza development plan. And why do women vote for misogynists?
I’m a straight white male American. I think Trump and his dreams of Führerprinzip are an existential threat — even though, at least in appearance, I am the least likely to be harassed by uniformed thugs. It must be that I am finally aware that it can happen here.
