🚨 Erasing History, Erasing People: Trump's America Resurrects Jim Crow and Digital Deportation

Discover the stunning reversal of civil rights policies impacting federal contracts, and the controversial new app mimicking a deportation tool and its potential effects.

😽 Keepin’ It Simple Summary for Younger Readers
👧🏾✊🏾👦🏾

Imagine there's a big rule that stopped people from saying certain groups of people couldn't use things like 🛁 bathrooms or sit in certain parts of a 🚌 bus. This rule was quietly changed, which means people might start doing those unfair things again. At the same time, a new 📱 phone app was launched to make certain people leave the country by promising them things, but it's not a good idea for everyone. It's really important for people to 🤝 work together to stop these unfair changes and help everyone feel safe and included.

🗝️ Takeaways

• 🏗️ Federal Contracts Change: Prohibitions against segregation removed from federal contracts.

• 📲 Deportation App: Introduction of a "self-deportation" app encouraging undocumented immigrants to leave.

• 🚪 Symbolic & Substantive Effects: Legal changes are both symbolic and impact real-world civil rights protections.

• 🏴‍☠️ Infrastructural Racism: Systematic incorporation of discriminatory policies into societal systems.

• 💡 Resistance Strategies: Emphasize community organization, legal actions, and cultural resilience.

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Erasing History, Erasing People: Trump's America Resurrects Jim Crow and Digital Deportation

If you've been wondering what the second Trump administration has been up to while distracting us with inflammatory tweets and staged press conferences, I've got news for you. The real work—the dangerous work—is happening in the quiet corners of the federal bureaucracy and in the digital architecture being built to target our communities.

Two recent developments deserve our urgent attention:

• The federal government silently removing prohibitions on segregation from its contracts and

• The launch of a cynical "self-deportation" app aimed at manipulating undocumented individuals into leaving the country.

Segregation Is No Longer Explicitly Banned in Federal Contracts

No es broma. This is not a joke, though I wish it were. Last month, the General Services Administration (GSA) issued a memo to federal agencies instructing them to remove specific language that has prohibited federal contractors from maintaining segregated facilities for decades. This change affects all civil federal agencies and is being implemented without the usual public notice and comment period.

The clause being removed, Federal Acquisition Regulation 52.222-21, titled "Prohibition of Segregated Facilities," has been part of federal contracting since the civil rights era. It explicitly banned contractors from maintaining segregated work areas, restaurants, drinking fountains, transportation, housing, and more based on "race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin."

Let's be clear about what this means. Federal contractors—companies that receive billions of taxpayer dollars—no longer have to explicitly pledge not to segregate their facilities.

While other civil rights laws still exist on the books, this change is both symbolic and substantive.

As Melissa Murray, a constitutional law professor at NYU, told NPR: "It's symbolic, but it's incredibly meaningful in its symbolism. These provisions that required federal contractors to adhere to and comply with federal civil rights laws and to maintain integrated rather than segregated workplaces were all part of the federal government's efforts to facilitate the settlement that led to integration in the 1950s and 1960s."

The administration claims this change was prompted by Trump's executive order on diversity, equity, and inclusion, which repealed an executive order signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. The GSA also cited Trump's executive order on gender identity as justification.

Qué conveniente—how convenient to use one form of discrimination to justify opening the door to others.

A federal worker who spoke anonymously to NPR described being "shocked" by the change and noted that the process used to implement it—without the typical 45 to 90-day public comment period—is usually reserved for national emergencies. "The way that they're implementing this in the contracting field is essentially subverting democracy," the worker said.

When asked why this change was made, the GSA refused to provide a direct answer, instead offering this bland statement: "GSA has taken immediate action to fully implement all current executive orders and is committed to taking action to implement any new executive orders."

Translation: We're just following orders.

The Digital Roundup: Trump's Self-Deportation App

As if removing civil rights protections wasn't enough, the Trump administration has launched what they're calling the "CBP Home App," designed to facilitate the "self-deportation" of undocumented immigrants.

In a 90-second video advertisement appearing on social media platforms, Trump urges unauthorized immigrants to "self-deport" using this new app to report when they're leaving the U.S. The president claims that those who use the app "could potentially have the opportunity to return legally at some point in the future."

But he adds an ominous warning: if immigrants don't take this "opportunity," they will be "found" and "deported" and "never be admitted again to the United States—ever, ever again."

¿Y quién les va a creer? Who's going to believe them? The administration that separated children from their parents at the border and lost track of them wants us to trust that they'll honor some vague promise of future legal entry?

This digital deportation scheme comes as the administration's actual deportation numbers are falling behind the daily average of the final weeks of the Biden administration.

Despite Trump's campaign promises to deport "millions and millions" of unauthorized immigrants, his administration is facing significant hurdles: lack of funds, insufficient detention space, too few officers, and inadequate infrastructure.

So, instead of building an actual functioning immigration system, they've built an app. Instead of addressing the root causes of migration or creating humane pathways to citizenship, they're trying to trick people into deporting themselves.

Meanwhile, the administration has shut down the CBP One app—a platform established under the Biden administration that actually facilitated legal border crossings.

This isn't about law and order; it's about creating fear and chaos.

How These Policies Connect to Indigenous and Chicano Experiences

For those of us with Indigenous and Chicano heritage, these developments are painfully familiar chapters in a long history of erasure and displacement.

The removal of segregation prohibitions echoes the systematic dismantling of treaty rights and protections for Indigenous peoples throughout U.S. history. Just as my ancestors watched promises written on paper vanish when they became inconvenient for those in power, we're witnessing the erasure of hard-won civil rights protections.

La historia se repite—history repeats itself. But what makes this moment particularly insidious is how it's being done: quietly, bureaucratically, without fanfare or public debate. They're betting that most Americans won't notice or care about technical changes to federal contracting language.

The self-deportation app represents another echo of our history—the long tradition of forcing Indigenous peoples and Mexican Americans from their ancestral lands. For many of us in the borderlands, our families didn't cross the border; the border crossed us. Our communities have lived in these territories for countless generations, yet we're repeatedly told we don't belong.

This digital initiative adds a cruel modern twist to an old tactic. It's psychological warfare disguised as technology—an attempt to make life so uncertain and frightening that people "choose" to leave. But is it really a choice when it's made under duress and false promises?

The Broader Strategy: Making America Segregated Again

While seemingly unrelated, these two policies are part of the same playbook. They both work to:

1. Erase protections for marginalized communities

2. Create systems that facilitate exclusion and removal

3. Use bureaucratic and technological means to implement discriminatory policies

4. Avoid public scrutiny and democratic processes

5. Disguise regressive policies as simple administrative changes or technological innovations

What we're witnessing is what I call "infrastructural racism"—building discrimination into the very systems and structures that govern our society. It's not just about individual acts of prejudice; it's about changing the rules of the game to make discrimination easier and resistance harder.

The removal of segregation prohibitions doesn't immediately create "Whites Only" signs, but it removes a barrier to their return. The self-deportation app doesn't physically force people across the border, but it psychologically manipulates them to leave. Both represent a form of violence that doesn't always leave visible bruises but wounds communities nonetheless.

What This Means for All of Us

You might be thinking, "I'm a citizen, so the deportation app doesn't affect me" or "I don't work for a federal contractor, so the segregation clause doesn't matter to me." But these changes affect all of us, regardless of our status or employment.

When civil rights protections are weakened for anyone, they become more vulnerable for everyone. Today, federal contractors no longer have to explicitly promise not to segregate; tomorrow, private businesses could argue they have the right to discriminate based on "religious freedom" or "personal choice."

The normalization of segregation and deportation creates a society where exclusion becomes acceptable—even expected. It divides communities and makes us all less secure in our rights and freedoms.

For those with privilege, these changes might seem abstract or distant. But for those of us who live in the borderlands, who carry Indigenous and Mexican heritage in our blood and bones, who know the sting of being told we don't belong in our ancestral lands—these policies are deeply personal. They're attacks not just on our rights but on our very existence.

No nos están atacando por lo que hacemos, sino por lo que somos—They're not attacking us for what we do, but for who we are.

Resistance Is Not Futile: How We Fight Back

Despite the darkness of this moment, I remain stubbornly, perhaps irrationally, hopeful. Why? Because I know our history—not just the history of oppression, but the history of resistance.

The elders used to tell me stories of the Mexican Revolution, of Indigenous uprisings, of communities that refused to disappear despite every effort to erase them.

"Somos como el nopal," they would say—we're like the prickly pear cactus. We grow in the harshest conditions, we have thorns to protect ourselves, and we provide nourishment to our communities even in times of scarcity.

Here's how we can resist these latest attacks:

1. Document and Share Information

• Monitor and document instances where federal contractors begin to segregate facilities or discriminate

• Share information about immigrant rights in multiple languages

• Create community networks to warn about ICE raids and provide support

• Use social media and community radio to counter misinformation about the "self-deportation" app

2. Engage in Legal and Political Resistance

• Support legal organizations challenging these policies, like the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and the National Immigration Law Center

• Contact your representatives and demand they speak out against these changes

• Register to vote if you can, and help others do the same

• Support progressive candidates who stand for immigrant and civil rights

3. Build Community Power and Mutual Aid

• Create or join local immigration defense networks

• Establish community ID programs that allow undocumented residents to access services

• Support worker cooperatives and community-owned businesses that provide dignified employment

• Share resources and skills within your community to reduce dependence on systems that exclude us

4. Reclaim Our Narratives and Cultural Power

• Support Indigenous and Chicano artists, writers, and creators who tell our stories

• Teach our histories in community spaces when schools fail to do so

• Preserve and practice our cultural traditions as acts of resistance

• Create spaces where our languages are spoken and valued

The Long View: We've Been Here Before

I write this from my home in the Borderlands, near the wall that slices through our lands like an open wound. Yet, I can also see the desert blooming after spring rains, with saguaros standing tall like ancestors watching over us and hummingbirds crossing borders that no human can control.

Estamos aquí todavía—we are still here.

Despite centuries of attempts to remove us, to assimilate us, to erase us, Indigenous and Chicano communities continue to exist and resist. We've survived Spanish colonization, Mexican independence, American annexation, Jim Crow laws, Operation Wetback, and countless other attacks on our existence.

We will survive Trump's segregation policies and digital deportation schemes, too.

Not because it will be easy—it won't be. But because we have no choice but to fight, and because the alternative—surrendering our rights and our lands—is unthinkable. As the Zapatistas say, "No nos vamos a rendir, no nos vamos a vender, y no vamos a claudicar"—we will not surrender, we will not sell out, and we will not give in.

So let's get to work, comrades. The struggle continues, but so does the resistance. And in that resistance, we find not just survival but joy, community, and the promise of a better world.

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Get Involved

If you're moved to action by these developments, here are some organizations doing important work that you can support:

• Mijente - A digital and grassroots hub for Latinx and Chicanx organizing

• Indigenous Environmental Network - Fighting for environmental justice and Indigenous rights

• United We Dream - The largest immigrant youth-led network in the country

• Border Network for Human Rights - Organizing border communities to defend human rights

• National Day Laborer Organizing Network - Supporting day laborers and low-wage workers

Consider donating your time, money, or skills to these organizations. Or start organizing in your own community—host a know-your-rights workshop, create a rapid response team for ICE raids, or run for local office.

La lucha sigue—the struggle continues. But we don't struggle alone.

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What do you think about these developments? Have you or your community been affected by these changes? What strategies for resistance have you found most effective in your local context?

Leave a comment below and let's continue this conversation. Your experiences and insights strengthen our collective resistance.

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