Chris Hayes Explains Why Trump’s Immigration Policies Are ‘an Assault on the Idea of America Itself’ | Video

Chris Hayes on Thursday examined an unsettling feature of the second Trump administration, increased actions by federal law enforcement that undermine one of America’s basic liberties — freedom of movement.

Hayes broke down just how bad the problem is getting with several chilling recent examples, eventually declaring that these actions are “an assault on the idea of America itself.”

“One of the cherished parts of being an American is freedom of movement. When you walk around, and this obviously applies more to certain folks than others, but you usually don’t have to stop at internal checkpoints or to show your papers to police,” Hayes began.

“I’ve traveled in other countries where, say, your bus stops and heavily armed federal agents climb on board to check everyone’s papers. It doesn’t feel good. It feels like a quintessential fixture of a country that’s not fully free, and it’s happening more and more and more in Trump’s America,” Hayes continued.

The MSNBC host then played video of the disturbing incident in Long Island, when ICE officers pulled over a United States citizen and started demanding to see his ID without cause. At once point ICE agents even threatened implied physical violence against the 23-year-old man for asserting his constitutional rights. The agents also refused to explain why the did this, and refused to provide identification.

“So those agents pulled that 23 year old from the van. They handcuffed him, later released him after confirming woopsies, he’s an American. No apologies, and he’s not alone,” Hayes continued. He then discussed the case of Brian Gavidia, an American citizen who, as video footage proves, was quite obviously racially profiled by border patrol agents in Los Angeles demanding to see his ID.

After playing footage of the encounter, Hayes said, “again, you’re working, you’re outside, armed mass federal agents come up and say, ‘show me your papers,’ push you up against the fence. He was not arrested, but he told the LA Times those agents took his real ID and never returned it,” noting that a Real ID is literally proof someone is American — meaning, by taking it they are actively preventing Gavidia from proving it should he be caught up in future racial profiling incidents.

“These are the cruel absurdities people are now facing every day, like this car full of members of an Arizona based Native American tribe who were followed for miles and then pulled over by border patrol last week,” Hayes continued, at which point he rolled a clip in which border patrol agents harassed a car full of an unnamed Arizona Native American Tribe.

“This is the America that Donald Trump and Stephen Miller want, that’s what they’re trying to create. It’s what we saw unfold at Dodger Stadium earlier today and at Home Depot in Hollywood, just as we saw it on the other side of LA over the weekend, at a flea market that was effectively shut down by ice and border patrol agents armed with n 6m, 16, wearing masks full military body armor,” Hayes continued as footage of said raid played. “They look like they’re going to go kill Osama bin Laden, agents who went up to bystanders at a flea market and asked them, ‘Where are you from?’ Got to show your papers.”

“Americans are being forced to accept mass paramilitary forces stopping people anytime, anywhere, in any circumstance, demanding to know where people are from. The way Trump sold this on the campaign was by saying, ‘we’re going to go at these other people that you hate, right? There’s this other group, and they’re bad and they’re hurting our country, and I’m going to protect you, American citizens,” Hayes went on. “We’re seeing every day, there is no way to do this, what they want to do, mass deportation, that is not massively disruptive to the liberties of every American. In fact, it’s an assault on the idea of America itself.”

Watch the whole video below:

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