‘These evil b-stards… Trump’s America’: Trump’s immigration raids are now targeting Native Americans

The internet agrees, Donald Trump’s deportation agenda is truly a thing of evil.

According to officials from the Navajo Nation, federal law enforcement officers have questioned and detained at least 15 indigenous people across New Mexico and Arizona, and have been subject to immigration raids where they have been burdened with providing proof of their citizenship. The internet has reacted with horror, with one user on X calling the detainments “appalling,” and another naming it to be the work of “evil bas—ds” working in the current administration of “Trump’s America.”

Arizona state Sen. Theresa Hatathlie told CNN she received a report from the family of a Navajo woman who was questioned by federal agents during a surprise raid at her workplace, and asked to show proof that she was Native.

ICE has carried out a string of surprise raids since Donald Trump took office. Immigration officers recently raided a seafood restaurant in Newark, New Jersey which lead to the detainment of three people. The mayor of New Jersey blasted the act, which was carried out without a warrant. One of the detainees was a military veteran, whose military documentation was questioned.

According to a release from the Office of Navajo President Buu Nygren, tribal leaders have contacted the Department of Homeland security in response to the detainments. “My office has received multiple reports from Navajo citizens that they have had negative, and sometimes traumatizing, experiences with federal agents targeting undocumented immigrants in the Southwest,” Nygren wrote in the document.

Nygren went on to say that counselors were brought in to help those detained, in order to treat the “suffering the emotional and mental impacts of negative encounters” with immigration officers. Nygren cautioned the Navajo community to carry multiple forms of state-issued I.D. at all times, as well as their Certificate of Indian Blood (CIB).

Despite Nygren’s warnings, many of the reports from those detained and questioned that their certificates and tribal identification cards were not treated as valid forms of identification by federal agents. It’s unclear which federal agency carried out the raids, and ICE has not responded for comment when questioned by CNN.

Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley told CNN that her constituents are experiencing “a lot of fear” highlighting the tragic reality that many “don’t feel safe in the country where they were born or where their ancestors come from.” Curley believes that her community is being “automatically being profiled or stereotyped” due to the color of their skin.

Senator Hatathlie, who is Diné/Navajo, concurs with Curley, and said that deep seated prejudice is responsible for the treatment of the Native community. “It’s too kind to say it’s racism or discrimination. It’s disrespect for humanity,” Hatathlie told CNN. ”If you can’t say, ‘we’ve been here for time immemorial,’ then you’re an immigrant. You’re not from here, so who are you to classify our Indigenous people? These lands have been a melting pot for many ethnicities,” Hatethlie said, calling out the hypocrisy of the immigration raids on Native Americans.

The Diné community has responded with similar outrage, and community elder and activity James Jackson has called the raids “shameful.” Jackson went on to say that the raids have made people “hyperaware of their surroundings, limiting their travel in their daily lives” for fear that they will be detained by immigration officials. “No one is illegal on stolen land,” concluded Jackson, who said that the raids are antithetical to Indigenous values that stipulate people should behave in a way that is “honorable and neighborly with each other.”