ICE Arrests Teen Mariachi Musicians Who Once Performed At US Capitol. But It’s About Criminals, Right?
Since the start of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation crackdown, the federal government has consistently flip-flopped on its messaging concerning whether it’s targeting the “worst of the worst” in “criminal illegal aliens” or if it’s all about rounding up any and every immigrant who is undocumented (and many who are documented, for that matter) and forcing them to leave.
To be clear, we know that the Trump administration is demonstrably going after non-criminals overwhelmingly — and the rhetoric spewed by Trump and his cohorts often indicates just that — but they still tend to pivot to a narrative that their agenda is about ridding the nation of foreign murderers, rapists, drug smugglers, terrorists and otherwise dangerous people.
So, why the hell are immigration agents out here arresting members of a high school mariachi band?
From HuffPost:
Antonio and Caleb Gámez-Cuéllar are members of Mariachi Oro, an award-winning high school mariachi group from McAllen, Texas, that previously performed on Capitol Hill and visited the White House. The two brothers were detained on February 25 along with their parents, Luis Antonio Martínez and Emma Guadalupe Cuéllar, as well as their younger brother Joshua.
In a statement about their detention, the Department of Homeland Security claimed that the family had entered the U.S. illegally and was released into the country by the Biden administration.
Martínez told The New York Times that the family filed an asylum claim in the U.S. after fleeing violence in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, where he was previously kidnapped by members of a cartel. He said that the family had attended all required court dates and check-ins with immigration authorities. According to Martínez, they were notified about an ICE check-in in February and were subsequently detained at that meeting.
Caleb, 14, and Joshua, 12, were held at a detention center in Dilley, Texas, where children are kept with their guardians. Antonio, 18, was detained separately at El Valle Detention Center in Raymondville, Texas, due to ICE policies barring adult males without children from being held at Dilley.
“I told them, he is a child,” Martínez told The Times about the separation. “He was in tears when they took him away in shackles.”
Yeah — we didn’t actually need any more examples of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown serving as a round-the-clock demonstration of white nationalist callousness, cruelty, and dehumanization, but here we are.
The Post reported that the two teen musicians and their family members were released from ICE custody after their arrests resulted in massive backlash, according to an announcement made by Reps. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) and Monica De La Cruz (R-Texas).
“How is it that these two young men were good enough to perform at the United States Capitol at the invitation of their congresswoman, they were safe enough to tour the White House, and yet the Trump administration has them sitting in a prison?” Castro asked in a video posted to Facebook on Saturday.
But that’s the rub, ain’t it?
MAGA supporters can eat at Mexican restaurants, enjoy entertainment inspired by other cultures (not at the Super Bowl, though, apparently) and live in cities with Spanish names — and still get online and whine about being replaced by foreign invaders who won’t assimilate to whatever the hell they think American culture is.
They’re fine listening to a mariachi band while they’re out for taco Tuesday, but once they’ve paid their check, the band can exit the restaurant into an ICE van, for all they care.
It was never about foreign criminality; it was always about pro-white purity. This just another story among many that reveals the agenda for exactly what it is.
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