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On Tuesday, US immigration lawyer Eric Lee appeared on Middle East Eye's YouTube program "MEE Live," where he delivered a stark analysis of the political crisis engulfing the United States.
Lee stated that the Trump administration is carrying out a deliberate conspiracy to abolish democratic rule, warning that "something that has never happened in this country before" is now unfolding. He described the president as "engaged in an active, aggressive conspiracy to establish a dictatorship," marking what he called a "qualitative shift" toward a "military-style police state dictatorship."
While underscoring the brutality of the mass deportations targeting immigrants, Lee explained that this campaign is merely the "tip of the spear" in a far broader drive to destroy democratic rights and consolidate authoritarian rule. The executive branch, he noted, is "flouting court decisions left and right" while deploying the military domestically in open violation of posse comitatus. The Trump administration is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act -- pushing the country "to the brink of martial law."
Meanwhile, the systematic criminalization of dissent, under the guise of fighting "domestic terrorism," has become a central instrument of repression. Lee cited the case of a DACA recipient detained merely for posting criticisms of US foreign policy on social media, as part of the government's effort to use immigration law to "suppress all opposition." He detailed how ICE's vast expansion -- its anonymous armed agents, unmarked vehicles and soaring budget for weapons and chemical agents -- has created the infrastructure of an unaccountable domestic security force.
Lee also made clear that no section of the political establishment is opposing this descent into authoritarianism. He denounced the Democratic Party's complicity, explaining that it has "essentially done nothing to oppose this attack on democratic rights" and in fact is "ready to collaborate with Trump."
The Democrats, Lee observed, have confirmed administration officials leading the assault on free speech and democratic rights, while refusing to mobilize any genuine opposition. The political crisis, he warned, "cannot be resolved in the courts," and those who look to the existing institutions of government for salvation are being led to disaster.
Lee concluded with a call to action, stressing that the defense of democracy can come only from the mass intervention of the working population itself. The only force capable of halting Trump's drive toward dictatorship, he said, is "the mass action of hopefully millions of people in this country" prepared to fight against the oligarchy and its assault on democratic rights.
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