Last year, this corner wrote about the irony of some people — mostly conservative-leaning minority voters in the US — idiomatically shooting themselves in the foot by voting for candidates with strong anti-immigrant views.
In the accompanying commentary, this corner related the story of an American lady whose husband, an undocumented Mexican who had lived in the US for almost 20 years with no criminal record, was deported back to Mexico just three months after a Republican president assumed office in January 2017, leaving behind a distraught American family.
According to the wife, she had voted for the Republican candidate because she believed it would be good for the economy and that only the “bad hombres” would be deported.
It turned out that she was partly correct on the first count but completely off the mark on the second.
Fast forward to January 2025. Another American lady, this one of Hispanic ethnicity but whose family had always voted conservatively, suffered enormous grief when her husband was unexpectedly detained and placed in deportation proceedings.
Despite the story’s bizarre twist, this real-life event was chock full of irony with a hefty dose of folly. The husband — originally from Venezuela — came to America in 2021 and applied for asylum based on the Biden administration’s humanitarian immigration policy. Having obtained a work permit, he was able to secure a good-paying job.
After marrying his US citizen spouse, they purchased a home where they settled down with their two young children.
When the Republicans recaptured the White House in November 2024, the husband, wanting to give his wife a pleasant surprise, drove his family down to a Trump-owned hotel in Miami in January 2025, hoping to catch a glimpse of the newly-reelected president in person. As fate would have it, however, they encountered the biggest surprise of their lives upon arrival.
Because the hotel security found an airsoft gun and marijuana paraphernalia underneath the seats of the family’s van, the husband was subjected to intensive questioning and was eventually turned over to the authorities, who put him in detention upon learning of his immigration status. Although he was granted a bond release pending his removal hearing, his work permit had expired in the meantime and he lost his job.
According to the wife, the incident has left them deeply mired in debt. The house is gone. She blamed what happened on the government’s strict immigration policy but fell short of criticizing the Republican president for her family’s misfortune.
It’s been proven true, time and time again: Putting a bullet hole in one’s own foot is bad. Very, very bad.
Interestingly, based on published interviews of impacted individuals involved in similar incidents, a small number had no inkling it would happen to them.
The majority, however, were well aware of the risks but simply chose not to care.
It calls to mind the astute observation of a certain Latino journalist who, in writing for The Independent as to why some minority voters were themselves becoming anti-immigrant, said: “Immigrants wanting to kick out the next group of immigrants is as old as America itself.”
It’s true. Older generations of immigrants have always resented the arrival of the newer ones.
Bullet to the foot be damned.
