The warning to Europe: Minneapolis shows what happens when right wing populism becomes policy

The numbers are clear. Over 200 million dollars in lost income. Fewer children in schools. More distrust toward police and authorities. This is not a theory, but the result of a large scale ICE operation in Minneapolis. A study by the University of California in San Diego records what has long been noticeable on the ground. When people start avoiding appointments because they could be arrested there, more breaks down than just a single procedure. At least 539 people were detained in exactly this way during the first nine months of the Trump administration. At routine appointments. Places that are supposed to represent administration become traps. Those who go risk detention. Those who do not go lose their status.

It spreads outward.

In Texas, access to professions is being tied to immigration status. A state in which around 1.7 million people without regular status are working. Construction, hospitality, services. Sectors that must function for everyday life to be possible at all. Those who are excluded do not disappear. They continue working, but invisibly, more poorly paid, easier to exploit. In Montana, the state is investigating its own capital employees because they are allegedly not acting harshly enough against people without papers. At the same time, entire industries come under pressure. Truck driving schools lose staff and licenses because new rules take effect. Up to 7,000 training providers face closure. One driver decides to return to a country marked by war rather than continue taking the risk of being detained during a control.

Controls also take place on the roads themselves. In Iowa, authorities act at weigh stations. Violations are used to detain people and deny them the possibility of release. These are not isolated cases. This is a system that operates at multiple points simultaneously.

The consequences are visible.

A court of appeals allows people to continue to be detained without bail. At the same time, population statistics show that immigration is declining in almost all regions of the United States. In three quarters of counties, growth is slowing or turning negative. Cities like New York are losing international arrivals on a large scale. Around 70 percent fewer arrivals. A metropolis that for decades was driven by immigration is standing still.

At the same time, a man from Venezuela is suing the US government. Neiyerver Adrián Leon Rengel reports detention conditions in the CECOT prison in El Salvador that he describes as inhumane. Overcrowding, psychological pressure, no access to lawyers. At the same time, Mexico is demanding clarification because 13 of its citizens have died in US custody. Consulates report hundreds of calls daily from people seeking protection.

A WARNING must be issued here:
The material documents extreme forms of degradation inside the CECOT prison complex in El Salvador. It is not for the faint of heart — and yet it offers an unfiltered glimpse into what happens when human beings are no longer seen as individuals, but merely as threats and statistics. Some of the video footage underpinning this text comes from the notorious CECOT prison complex in El Salvador and was partly recorded covertly. It shows bodies packed tightly together—a hell on earth—with people lined up like merchandise. When the president announced that around 139,000 people had been deported, Thomas Homan spoke of “good numbers.” Homan, a man who has become the embodiment of the new deportation state, had already served under Trump 1.0 as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — the agency responsible for carrying out arrests, detentions, and deportations. He is a technocrat of severity: someone who sees deportations not as exceptions, but as a fundamental task of government. In television appearances, Homan often presented himself like a prosecutor in uniform, speaking in sharp, uncompromising sentences and treating immigration not as a human reality, but as a “security issue.” Now, back in power under Trump 2.0, he presents the new deportation figures like an accountant proudly unveiling a particularly profitable quarterly report.

Even where rules should actually be clear, contradictions arise. The Department of Justice had to admit that it mistakenly relied on an ICE document to justify arrests at courts. At the same time, a state like New Jersey prohibits masked operations by authorities. The response from Washington is clear. It will not comply.

At the municipal level, the structure is often lacking to respond at all. In New York, the responsible office for immigration issues consists of five people. Five people for one of the largest immigration cities in the world. The question of how this is supposed to work remains.

Europe is choosing the same path - with votes from the far right

On March 26, the European Parliament approved the so called return regulation. The vote did not follow the usual majority of conservatives, social democrats and liberals. Instead, the European People’s Party, right wing and far right factions voted together - including the AfD. According to media reports, these factions had already jointly drafted the parliamentary position. After the vote, members of the right wing factions celebrated frenetically.

What the law specifically means: member states will be able to detain people obliged to leave the country for up to 24 months. Rejected asylum seekers can be deported not only to their countries of origin, but also to third countries with which they have no connection. Asylum centers outside the EU are to become possible - so called return hubs. Those who do not cooperate or are classified as a security risk will face stricter measures.

Birgit Sippel, spokesperson on internal affairs for the social democratic S&D group, said the draft effectively equates rejected asylum seekers with convicted criminals. The EPP had broken a taboo by cooperating with the AfD.

Manfred Weber, CSU politician and chairman of the EPP, has now entered into this cooperation multiple times. The informal coalition of the center - EPP, social democrats, liberals - would have had a narrow majority that would have made cooperation with the far right unnecessary. It failed because the social democrats did not want to agree to the return hubs in their current form. Weber looked for a majority elsewhere. He found it.

This is the point at which Europe should stop pretending to be surprised.

What is visible here is not a one time tactical decision. It is a dynamic. Europe’s asylum policy is gradually approaching a logic that until now was primarily known from Washington - deterrence, outsourcing, detention as a tool. The language is different, the direction is the same. And the votes used to enforce this direction are increasingly coming from parties with which one supposedly did not want to cooperate. After the parliamentary vote, the Council of the EU, Parliament and Commission must agree on the final legal text in the so called trilogue procedure. Since both the Commission and the member states are treating the issue as a priority, a rapid agreement is expected. What then enters into force is European law. Negotiated with votes that only a few years ago no one wanted at this table.

Minneapolis shows where this leads.

When trust disappears, systems no longer function. People do not report crimes because they themselves are afraid. Children stay away from school. Employers lose workers. Money disappears from the local economy. That is a consequence. That is the direct result of a policy built on pressure.

See also our article: Investigations reveal: Bounty list - How ICE pays local police for arrests, even involving children

At the same time, it is expected that everything continues to function. That cities remain safe, that supply chains work, that schools are filled. But this is exactly what is being undermined. In the end, a simple equation remains. Those who push people out of everyday life lose more than just labor. They lose stability.

Minneapolis has already paid that price.