Mathew Rodriguez is a Puerto Rican writer and author based in Brooklyn.
The night before we were set to fly out of John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, I approached my partner with a confession: For the first time that I can remember, I was afraid of flying with a Latino last name.
It was a new sort of affront I had to steel myself against. Air travel is filled with moments — bu...
The strongest version of this narrative is that Rodriguez's experience at JFK is a microcosm of a deliberate, systemic effort by the Trump administration to normalize authoritarian overreach, using ICE as a tool to intimidate marginalized communities. The article effectively steelmans this by grounding the personal anecdote in broader political context—ICE's expanded role, Bannon's comments, and the framing of these actions as part of a "test run" for further encroachments on civil liberties. Th...