By Ousainou Mbenga
As the outrage over the recent Trump Temper Tantrums (TTT), referring to African countries as “shithole countries” is settling, the Trump regime yet again unleashed another wave of attacks against African immigrants in the U.S with utmost disdain. In its mass deportation frenzy, the Trump regime is bent on surpassing Obama’s appalling deportation record with total disregard for law to satisfy his campaign promises made to his willfully ignorant support base of voters.
As quietly as it was kept in the mainstream media, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is on the rampage rounding up Africans across the U.S and subjecting them to a reckless fast-track deportation process unprecedented in recent history. Notwithstanding that other nationals not African are being deported, it is no comparison to how Africans are herded from state to state far away from their original point of arrest and caged in tents with unbearable temperatures, taking cold showers and ultimately handcuffed and chained throughout the flight back to the motherland. It was alleged that the deportees back to the Congo (DRC) were wearing diapers in order for them not to use the bathroom during a harrowing flight.
The cold-blooded acronym ICE, was not accidental. It was created in 2002 under the Homeland Security Act, following the events of September 11, 2001. It was on the footing of vengeance against “America’s enemies” real and perceived. Since it was founded, ICE has left a trail of sorrow, tears and blood along its path from the Mexican border into South America and increasingly into Africa. Trump’s terror has everyone on edge and worst among the disorganized African Immigrant communities across the US.
Trump acts on his campaign promise threats
The rage and frenzy to build the wall along the U.S – Mexico border has resurfaced with a vengeance. Trump recently visited the border with fanfare to inspect the prototype of the wall to be, stretching 1,954 miles (3,145 kilometers). His rabid campaign threats against immigrants is on full throttle with mass deportations of Africans. It is quite obvious that Trump is out to set an example on “African immigrants,” the most unorganized immigrant community in the U.S, therefore the most vulnerable to the systematic abuse by ICE.
“This is the house that black built”
If America is “great” it is black people – Africans – that made it great from our unpaid labor for 400 years and the continuous expropriation of our resources into the “western” countries, leaving Africa to eke out a living on pittance, AID and handouts. All of this is possible and continues with the collaborations of the neocolonial stooge states that would sacrifice their young to the roaring currents of the Atlantic Ocean in a desperate search for “greener pastures” in Europe and America. Yet America has historically been ungrateful to Africa and Africans. The fact of the matter is that African immigrants are simply chasing their “stolen resources”.
Had not the “not so great Britain” and her offspring, America, given support to the monstrous tyranny of these neocolonial regimes across Africa, many among us would have preferred to stay in AFRICA and make Africa great again! But the genuine struggle for liberation continues!
Therefore, the resistance against the mass deportation of “African immigrants” out of the U.S should not be fought in ISOLATION. Our African brothers and sisters that came to the Americas before us, particularly the United States of America, should be the first we reach out to for support against this humiliation. We came to America in chains by sea and now we are being deported to Africa in chains by air. It will be foolhardy not to involve the entire black community across the U.S to resist Trump’s terror. This attack is not against Senegambians, Ghanaians or Congolese but an attack on Africa and Africans.
Neocolonial sellouts
The impotent African governments, in general, and Gambia in particular, continue to betray the aspirations of the masses of our people for their narrow selfish interest to obtain visas for themselves and families to come to the U.S and allegedly accepted blood-money from the German government to accept its deportees. As their standard operating procedure (SOP), the Barrow regime habitually disavows all of its interactions with their “partners in development” (EU & U.S). The Barrow regime has become a den of unscrupulous sellout politicians willing to sell its young citizens for a pittance. What will they do when the oil and gas begin to flow? Let’s get organized and repel the attacks from Trump in the U.S and the Barrow regime in the Gambia. We also express our unconditional solidarity with our African brothers and sisters across Europe subjected to the same humiliation.
A million African march against Trump’s illegal deportations!
