How slain NYC cop Didarul Islam shattered Trump's immigration lies

For much of the 21st century, the American Dreamers of a fast-growing Bangladeshi diaspora have been hiding in plain sight in places like New York City’s Bronx borough — new arrivals who fled adversity, economic or otherwise, in South Asia. Many with college degrees worked at low-paying jobs such as selling doughnuts, or as a school crossing guard, anything to gain a foothold in the United States.

But since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, thousands went into actual hiding.

“Many Bangladeshis are avoiding going out unless it is necessary,” an immigrant to New York, who didn’t want his name used, told the Dhaka-based Daily Star in April. “Some haven’t even visited local markets in months.”

There was good reason to be frightened. The Daily Star reported in the same article that 31 Bangladeshis were deported in the first three months of the Trump regime, amid reports that dozens more were held in detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Officials in the mostly Islamic, eighth-most-populous nation in the world considered it a small victory when U.S. authorities agreed not to handcuff Bangladeshis during deportation flights.

This spike in deportations went almost as unnoticed as the fast-growing Bangladeshi community itself. But that all changed in a few shattering seconds in Midtown Manhattan early Monday evening, when the American ambitions of 36-year-old New York City police officer Didarul Islam came face-to-face with our national nightmare of mass shootings.

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/didarul-islam-bangladeshi-immigration-trump-20250731.html