In Trump’s America, wealthy criminals are pardoned, poor innocents are arrested

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A few years back a reality show called Chrisley Knows Best was always playing on one of the TV monitors at the gym. I would passively watch it while reading the subtitles, and a couple of times I threw my headphones in just for noise. As far as I could tell it followed the lives of Todd and Julie Chrisley, a wealthy, obnoxious southern couple, and their wealthy, obnoxious children as they went through the motions of their ostentatious lives. So when Todd and Julie were sentenced in 2022 to 12 and seven years in prison, respectively, after being convicted of bank and tax fraud, I remember thinking to myself, “yea, that tracks.”

But with Donald Trump back in power, the Chrisley’s—fellow real estate scammers—found their golden ticket: Todd and Julie received a full pardon from Trump last week and were immediately released from prison. 

Three days after their release, Marcelo Gomes da Silva, an 18-year-old high school volleyball player in Massachusetts with no criminal record, was pulled over and taken by ICE. He remains in their custody today, despite the fact that they were actually looking for his father. The teen, who is originally from Brazil, is trapped, and he has no rich friends to call. Juxtaposing these stories exposes a despicable truth—that we live in a country full of innocent Marcelo’s doing their best to get by while under the rule of criminal Todd’s and Julie’s who have been absolved as a result of being wealthy, white Christians. 

For the past two weeks in New York City federal immigration court, ICE agents have swarmed the two adjacent buildings where proceedings and check-ins are held to arrest people who are simply there following the rules. In the lobbies of 26 Federal Plaza and 290 Broadway, agents in plainclothes have continually approached people either coming out of a hearing or showing up for a requested check-in with authorities, handcuffing them, sneaking them down elevators and into the parking lot so they can be whisked away out of sight. 

Even a pastor who was serving as an observer was arrested as part of the new court house offensive. Activists sat in the middle of the street with their hands raised to attempt to block the vehicles from successfully carrying out their kidnappings last week. They, too, were arrested.

On Friday afternoon I went by the entrances to both buildings. While standing outside 290 Broadway, a legal observer named Alex was in tears after witnessing people getting arrested by ICE upstairs. 

“What's happening is the government is making motions to terminate their [immigration] proceedings and saying ‘it's not in our interest to pursue the proceedings in this court’,” Alex explained to me. “Then as soon as they leave, ICE picks them up, detains them, and now they're gonna be held in detention and will have to fight their case from there.”

She said some family members who witnessed the arrests of their loved ones were “weeping and wailing.”

The same thing is happening in Chicago where Steve Held from Unraveled Press has been reporting. He wrote about witnessing the immigration hearing of a man from Jordan whose case was dismissed: “The ICE agents swiftly moved in and informed him he was being detained. It was clear that it had not occurred to him or his aunt that he might be snatched by federal agents today—after all, he was following the rules, and had attended his hearing as required. ” 

He added: “Agents took the man down a long hallway to a set of internal elevators. I rushed down to the lobby and the parking garage, but I never saw where they went.”

Marcelo Gomes da Silva, the teenager from Massachusetts, was taken on his way to volleyball practice Saturday, though fortunately for family and friends they know where he is. He’s currently being held at the ICE detention facility in Burlington, MA, where he described to one of his lawyers the inhumane conditions. “There’s no beds or cots, he and everyone he’s with are sleeping on a cement floor," Attorney Robin Nice told local news. 

A judge on Monday ordered Gomes da Silva not be removed from the state for 72 hours while another judge is randomly assigned to his case. It’s still unclear why a teenager, who as another one of his attorneys noted has "no criminal history anywhere in the world", remains caged.

The rich and powerful, on the other hand, are well aware that their freedom can be bought. Or at the very least, achieved by pledging their undying loyalty to the president. After all, Todd and Julie Chrisley’s daughter Savannah spoke at last summer’s Republican National Convention in an obvious gambit to secure their release.

"I'll never forget what the prosecutors said in the most heavily Democrat county in the state, before an Obama-appointed judge," Savannah told the crowd in Milwaukee. "He called us the Trumps of the South. He meant it as an insult. But let me tell you, boy do I wear it as a badge of honor.”

In the end, the badge proved to be all too worth it. 

Former nursing home executive Paul Walczak had similar luck by appealing to Trump’s vanity and ego. While awaiting sentencing earlier this year for tax crimes, Walczak submitted a pardon application to the new president which stressed his mother’s unwavering loyalty—and hefty fundraising. After his mother Elizabeth Fago attended a $1 million-per-person dinner at Mar-A-Lago in April, suddenly her son’s dream came true. 

“Less than three weeks after she attended the dinner, Mr. Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon,” the New York Times reported in late May. “It came just in the nick of time for Mr. Walczak, sparing him from having to pay nearly $4.4 million in restitution and from reporting to prison for an 18-month sentence that had been handed down just 12 days earlier. A judge had justified the incarceration by declaring that there ‘is not a get-out-of-jail-free card’ for the rich.”

Apparently Donald Trump is the ‘get-out-of-jail-free card for the rich.

People like Marcelo Gomes da Silva don’t have the opportunity to broker a deal with Trump and his allies. Mahmoud Khalil remains incarcerated in a Louisiana ICE prison nearly two months after his unlawful detainment. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is still trapped in an El Salvador prison despite multiple court orders demanding his immediate return. Omar Ameen is in Rwanda. They don’t have wealthy family members who can toss a cool million at the President of the United States; but what the targets of this cruel administration do have are community members who are willing to fight for them.

Gomes da Silva was supposed to play in the band at his high school’s graduation ceremony on Sunday. To mark his absence, the school displayed his empty drum set. And at his team’s volleyball game Tuesday evening, members of the home and visiting teams along with spectators wore “Free Marcelo” shirts. 

"That game represented the spirit of Marcelo; he was still there," Milford High School senior Aloiye Okhipo told WCVB. "We made you proud. We did our best. We showed up for him, you know, and I think he'd be glad people know what's happening and people want the best for him."

Students at the local middle school held a walkout during lunch on Wednesday in protest of Gomes da Silva’s detainment. 

And in San Diego after a violent, flash bang grenade-aided ICE raid on a restaurant Friday evening, locals made it clear to ICE and related federal agencies that they were not welcome. 

In Minneapolis late Tuesday morning at least 12 federal law enforcement agencie including ICE, plus state and local agencies, converged on one business on Lake Street to serve a warrant. A community response materialized almost instantly, with people flooding the street. Law enforcement and Mayor Jacob Frey are claiming this action had nothing to do with an immigration matter, however at this point it’s impossible to know for sure because the warrant they were serving is sealed. 

“The feds were extremely physical with people and very much ready to fight,” Karl Folk, a local researcher of the far right and sociologist who was present at Tuesday’s protest, told me. “They all had suppressed rifles and impact rifles as well as tear gas launchers. I had a taser pulled on me by [Homeland Security Investigations] HSI for asking questions in the crowd.”

Folk added: “They were very, very aggressive and violent.”

Regardless of what action they were supposedly serving, the Minneapolis community sent a clear message: They will not tolerate federal authorities violating their sanctuary city.

It’s impossible not to feel like this is all deeply unfair, and that’s because it is. Convicted criminals sprawl on feather beds while an innocent teen is curled up on a cement floor. The idea of justice eludes even the people who are following the letter of the law and want nothing more than to live peacefully in this country, while the people who have everything continue to skirt the system in search of more.