Amateur MMA fighter Greg Gianforte won the special election to fill Montana’s lone House seat last night, despite being charged with criminal assault for bodyslamming a reporter the day before. As Daily Kos Elections noted, “with perhaps as much as two-thirds of the vote cast early,” it’s not clear how much the assault affected voters, if at all. Remember, this is a state that went by double digits to a racist after he confessed on tape to sexual assault. And, both got away with it, because Gianforte is now congressman-elect, and Donald Trump is now the president. Watch whiteness work, because if any brown folks tried that shit, they’d be calling someone for bail right now. It’s something that wasn’t lost on former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara—fired by the popular vote loser for perhaps being a little too good at his job—who tweeted that if Gianforte “were an immigrant … he’d face deportation”:
While Trump’s anti-immigrant executive order from last January made just about any undocumented immigrant here eligible to be swept up by his mass deportation force, on camera Trump was telling a very different—and untrue—story, claiming that he and ICE would target only criminals and “bad hombres” for arrest and deportation. The fact is the Trump regime has expanded the definition of “criminal” so broadly, that even undocumented immigrants with traffic infractions—like making an improper U-turn—can get torn from their families and shipped out of this country. But apparently, as long as you look like Gianforte, you can assault someone on tape, in front of witnesses, and it won’t stop you from getting elected to the United States Congress.
Immigrant rights group America’s Voice shares one outrageous story of one of those “bad hombres”:
In Florida, Victor Arriaga, a 48-year-old father of four suffering from liver disease, has been deported back to Mexico for minor offenses such as making an improper U-turn and failing to vaccinate a pet: “An immigration judge issued a voluntary departure order for Arriaga in February 1997. Because he never left the country, a final deportation order was issued last month,” ICE spokeswoman Tammy Spicer said. Spicer said between March 2005 and Oct. 2012, Arriaga was issued citations alleging several misdemeanor violations. They included driving with a suspended license, violating an open-container ordinance, making an improper U-turn and failing to vaccinate a pet. None of those violations triggered deportation under the Obama administration. Arriaga was allowed to continue living in the U.S., and he checked in with ICE annually…Although Arriaga’s four children, including two born in the U.S., are grown, his son said his absence over the past couple of weeks has put a strain on them. The younger Arriaga was taking midterm exams at the University of South Florida in Tampa when he learned his father had been detained.
Trump’s assistant to the solicitor general argued in front of the Supreme Court last April that failing to disclose any sort of offenses no matter how irrelevant or minor during the naturalization process—even driving 60 in a 55 miles an hour zone, as cited in an example by an incredulous Chief Justice John Roberts—was grounds to revoke United States citizenship from an immigrant. Meanwhile, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the chief law enforcement officer in the nation and America’s most notorious racist Keebler elf, can fail to disclose meetings with Russians during his security clearance process, lie under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee, help Donald Trump fire former FBI Director James Comey during his fake recusal from the Russian investigation, and still remain in his job. And, if you’re Greg Gianforte, you can assault without fear of repercussions. But, god forbid you make a U-turn while undocumented.