Former Labor Secretary accuses Donald Trump of stoking 'fear and hatred' against immigrants

Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich accused President Donald Trump of stoking fear and hatred against immigrants, despite the U.S. having a long history of immigration. In a post on X, Reich urged Americans not to give in to the White House's agenda and to remember that a large part of the population was descendants of immigrants "who fled persecution, or were brought to America under duress, or simply sought better lives for themselves and their descendants."

Reich has been a long-time critic of the Trump administration, especially its immigration policies. In a recent video posted on the social media platform, he explained why the U.S. stood to gain from a healthy immigrant population. The former Labor Secretary explained that immigrants did not drive crime in the U.S., and that they would actually help the economy grow by as much as $7 trillion over the next decade.

The former labor secretary also claimed that the narrative that said immigrants were taking jobs from Americans was not true. "Immigrants are not taking away jobs Americans want," he said. "Undocumented immigrants, in particular, are doing some of the most dangerous, difficult, low-paying, and essential jobs in the country. Despite what certain pundits might tell you, immigration has not stopped the U.S. from enjoying record-low unemployment," he said. Reich believes that young immigrants could provide "a thriving base of younger workers."

Reich's defence of immigrants in the U.S. comes against the backdrop of the Trump administration preparing to open a 528-bed holding facility for migrant families and unaccompanied children in Alexandria, Louisiana. According to ABC News, the new facility would be located next to an airport hub, which could help speed up deportations. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) called the facility a "staging area," stating that people would only be there for a few days.

Immigration advocates, however, have expressed concerns that children could be held at the facility for months, as was the case with other detention centers. "It's an expansion of the deportation system in ways we haven't seen before," said Leecia Welch, chief legal counsel at the nonprofit Children’s Rights. "There's just so much that could go wrong with this facility."

Unaccompanied children in the U.S. are put in the care of state-licensed shelters and foster care programs as per the law, instead of ICE-overseen facilities. The Office of Refugee Resettlement runs them in the Department of Health and Human Services. However, that would not be the case with the Alexandria facility. Instead, it would be run by a nonprofit arm of LaSalle Corrections, a private prison contractor, according to Ralph Hennessy, executive director of the England Airpark Authority, who believes that it could be operational as early as August.

The Trump administration's detention centers have yet to gain the public's trust about how detainees are treated. A recent ProPublica report shares the story of a 55-year-old Cuban immigrant who passed away at the relatively new Camp East Montana detention center in El Paso, Texas. While the Trump administration had claimed the cause of death to be medical distress, a coroner later ruled his death a homicide.

The detainee, Geraldo Lunas Campos, suffered from mental health disorders and complained at least eight times to staff about skipped or late doses of antipsychotic drugs to treat his depression, anxiety, and hallucinations. There had also been instances of self-harm and attempted suicide, with records stating that the detainee performed a "suicidal gesture made to force security staff to release him." Such incidents have concerned people about how detainees, especially those with mental health issues, are treated in such detention centers.