Donald Trump is expanding a system of immigration enforcement which already punishes immigrants and makes them vulnerable.

A large part of Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign played on many Americans’ concerns about immigration, and since coming into office, Trump has stepped up immigration enforcement. Inés Valdez writes that the Trump administration’s actions are only the latest iteration of punitive immigration enforcement policies that have been developing for three decades, and which are a way for right-wing populists to play on the anxieties of White Americans.