So Much for the Rapists and Murderers

Susan Estrich on Jul 19, 2025

Remember when candidate Donald Trump went on and on about all the rapists and murderers who were invading our country and he said he was going to deport them? It was his favorite issue, his answer to everything. It was enough to frighten anyone and helped him win the election. People believed him: According to exit polls, even many Hispanic Americans agreed that those who had entered the country illegally and then committed acts of violence should be deported. They assumed, wrongly, that raids would be limited and targeted, surgical, that they would not bring a reign of terror to everyone who has brown skin. They would never have voted for that. Only a racist would. And yet that is precisely what we got in Southern California.

My friend Rosie had to drive her 40-year-old son to a haircut appointment and stay with him there because he was afraid that ICE would round him up on the Metro or show up at the barbershop. He is an American citizen with no criminal record. So is his mother. I have countless friends who -- American citizens or legal permanent residents all -- are driving their frightened children everywhere, even though the children are all U.S. citizens. Family separation is everyone's great fear. Ridership on the Metro is down substantially because so many people are afraid to be "part" of any group full of brown men.

My friend George, also a citizen who lives in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, tells me ICE vehicles drive slowly and deliberately around his neighborhood every day looking for brown men on street corners, or at Home Depot, where so many go to buy supplies for their jobs. Construction at one friend's house has stopped because her contractor, an American citizen, is afraid to show up at the work site or go shopping for supplies. The women -- and men -- are afraid to go to the grocery store to buy food for their families, so local nonprofits have taken it upon themselves to deliver groceries to Hispanic families.

Nearly everyone I know is afraid to go to churches in Hispanic neighborhoods, and the archbishop has literally excused them from coming to Mass because of these fears. The word on the street is that they will round up anybody with brown skin, and then it can take at least two weeks in detention (if you're lucky) to straighten things out, and let citizens and those with green cards out of awful detention. ICE, backed up by the Marines and National Guard, who no one wanted called up (no one being the governor and the mayor and most of the citizens) have brought a reign of terror to our community.

And for what? For whom? Figures out this week show that more than half of those arrested in Southern California had no criminal convictions or charges. Of those arrested on the streets or in courts, 75% had no criminal convictions. Only one in ten had any pending charges against them. If we needed proof of the randomness of these raids, we have it.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military -- the Marines and the National Guard, the young men and women who have volunteered to serve and protect our country (many of them with brown skin as well)-- are, according to news reports, mostly fighting tedium and boredom. There are no riots; I'm old enough to have lived through the 1992 riots, when the city did need the National Guard. Trust me, it was different. As the Los Angeles Times reported this week, the Marines and the National Guard "were deployed to combat 'violent, insurrectionist mobs' around Los Angeles, but in recent days the only thing many troops seemed to be fighting was tedium." They need to get back to the jobs they signed up for and let our city return to normal. Round up the rapists and murderers, but leave the rest of us alone.

========

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.