NEWARK - The ongoing image of men in masks with guns unsuccessfully trying to intimidate protesters outside Delaney Hall only heartbreakingly projects American weakness, a shameful commentary on the same week as Memorial Day, when we honor brave men and women who fought and fight for our First Amendment rights.

A lawless individual, never in a fight, never in the street, who has hidden his whole life in gold brocaded ivory towers and on his own luxury golf courses, surrounded by yes-men, paying people off to keep their mouths shut, Trump will ultimately fail in his quest to turn our country into a concentration camp offset by billionaire fortifications, his very own version of sanctuary cities for the only class he cherishes.

Finally, we remain a nation of laws not private detention centers guarded by "police" trying to look like terrorists at the Munich Olympic games, who conjure the same menacing behavior exhibited by MAGA individuals who stormed the United States Capitol on Jan. 6th, 2021, to try to short-circuit the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The people coming after your elections in November figure they can keep enough people stirred up over the horrors of "illegal aliens," their words, not mine, and simpering enabling Democrats - the preferred terminology of Trump's propaganda machine - but far deeper principles are at stake.

From The New Jersey Monitor:

A federal judge in New Jersey warned he would order federal prosecutors to answer questions under oath if they continued to seek arrests and detentions under a portion of the federal code already rejected in hundreds of cases.

In a brief opinion issued Thursday that ordered the release of an El Salvadorian immigrant detained by federal authorities, U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi said federal authorities’ continued reliance on the statute bespeaks intentional disregard for the law and courts.

“The Government’s continued actions after being called to task can now only be deemed intentional. The undersigned will not stand idly by and allow this intentional misconduct to go on,” Quraishi wrote, referring to himself. “It ends today.”

Trump brags about sealing the border, but undermining protections for people, human beings, blows up the bedrock of the country, unsettling at the very least as we watch masked men spray and swat away at protesters joined in solidarity with those individuals inside the private prison in Newark staging a hunger strike this week because they know they are running out of options.

This is not Democrats versus Republicans. Understand that. This is Trump's billionaire class against the working poor. This is an attempt to dragnet and criminalize individuals who for the most part are workers - men and women you see early in the morning riding bikes to work on super highways, or making their way cross town in public transportation to work multiple shifts. You see them every day. So do I.

We determine the health of our society by our treatment of those most vulnerable, and Trump's ICE policy - which has already resulted in the killing of American citizens and the death of a detainee at Delaney Hall - serves no purpose other than to placate a tyrannical, bone-spur addled president and the abusive billionaire class he serves. As an individual with zero leadership ability in the true American vein of the wise use of power, he appeals to the prejudices and pains of American workers to stigmatize other workers and divide working class people while empowering the uber rich. This is not Democrats versus Republicans. It's people who work for a living pitted against one another by golf course dwellers like Trump who never served in a war, dug a ditch, swept a floor, pounded a nail, or drove a truck.

Consider this, from NBC:

Demand for luxury yachts and private jets is surging thanks to last year’s tax law. Sales of $10 million-plus mansions are booming as stocks hit new highs. And the wealthy and powerful will get to enjoy a new ballroom for galas at the White House.

What if you aren’t rich?

The typical American can’t afford the median-priced home. A new car is out of reach for many, with the average monthly payment exceeding $700. Food banks are seeing a growing number of people skipping meals because they can’t afford groceries, and more middle-class Americans are selling their plasma to make ends meet.

Consider those men on a hunger strike inside Delaney Hall - many of them with families and wives back at home trying to care for their families, men like Martin Soto (relocated earlier this week to Elizabeth), jumped by men in masks when he went out to get diapers for his and his wife's child. And consider that Forbes now pegs Trump’s overall fortune at $6.3 billion as of April 2026, "nearly three times his estimated $2.4 billion at the start of 2024—growth driven overwhelmingly by business ventures tied directly to his political power."

Again, from NBC:

The divide between rich and poor in America is the widest it’s been in at least a generation — and growing. The amount of wealth held by the top 1% increased at more than double the rate of the bottom 90% in the first nine months of last year, according to Federal Reserve figures. At the very top, Elon Musk’s fortune is approaching that of legendary 19th-century businessman John D. Rockefeller when looked at as a share of the overall U.S. economy.

No wonder Trump beefed up ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) from $6 billion budget ten years ago to $85 billion in his so-called 'Big Beautiful Bill, which specializes in installing armed, quick-triggered, and panic-prone men in masks on the streets who - in the time of Trump - amassed a record of terror and murder in Minneapolis, and now baton-flailing hostility in New Jersey.

“It just so happens Congress is debating whether to give the Department of Homeland Security another $70 billion to continue ramping up their mass deportations, all while federal agents shoot rubber bullets and pepper spray at elected officials, families of detainees, and community members," noted Haddy Gassama, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. "Their sickening display in Newark this Memorial Day weekend is but the latest reminder why our representatives and Senators must hold firm and refuse to be complicit in fueling ICE’s reckless abuses in our communities.”

It's all part of Trump's rabid attempt to deoxygenate working people and escalate the militarization of America, conveniently in time to short-circuit elections (if at first you don't succeed, try again), disgracing not only the work of real police officers out there every day risking their lives, and the cherished memory of Americans who ran up the beaches in the 20th Century and fought fascism, but American democracy at its core, while absolutely desecrating the profound value of work itself.

The numbers aren't there for Trump and his withered and decayed class and he knows it. He's playing a losing hand, shrieking about Democrats protecting "illegal aliens," while all this amounts to is a weak and spoiled man's concentration campification of America behind masked henchmen, intent on protecting the golf courses and penthouses of his billionaire constituents at the expense of everyone else, starting with the guy out there dodging masks and guns just to get to work, who now sits in Delaney Hall inside a privatized jail cell.