Michelle Obama claimed that the immigration policies of President Donald Trump “keep me up” at night because she fears people in the country illegally will fall victim to racism.
The former first lady, who, like her husband, former President Barack Obama, frequently plays the race card, told “On Purpose” podcast host Jay Shetty that she and her brother Craig Robinson allegedly learned at an early age that “no one was going to see beyond the color of our skin.”
Despite both of them hailing from an upper-middle-class background and enjoying success in their lives, her husband rose to become arguably the most powerful man in the world for eight years.
Liberal Shetty asked Michelle Obama what she fears most now, and it was, of course, Trump.
“In this current climate, for me, it’s what’s happening to immigrants,” Obama said.
“My fears are for what I know is happening out there in the streets all over the city,” she added, referring to her hometown of Chicago, Fox News reported.
“Now that we have leadership that is sort of indiscriminately determining who belongs and who doesn’t,” the former first lady said Monday, adding that such deportation decisions “aren’t being made with courts and with due process” — a claim that is false on its face.
“I worry for people of color all over this country, and I don’t know that we will have the advocates to protect everybody,” she continued. “And that makes me … that frightens me. It keeps me up at night.”
“And I and I see that when I’m driving around LA. I’m just looking in the faces of folks who could be a victim, and I’m wondering, how are you feeling, how do you feel standing on the bus stop,” she incredulously claimed.
Obama appeared on the podcast with her brother, Robinson, where the two discussed topics including race, bias, parenting, and their close sibling relationship from childhood to adulthood, Fox noted. While she didn’t mention Trump by name, Obama expressed concern over immigration policies and drew a comparison between deportation efforts and an incident from her brother’s youth, when a police officer allegedly accused him of stealing a bike at age 12.
Obama acknowledged that the “fear” she described doesn’t personally affect her, given her status as a former first lady with full Secret Service protection.
“It’s not the fear for myself anymore,” she continued. “I drive around in a four-car motorcade with a police escort. I’m Michelle Obama. I do still worry about my daughters in the world, even though they are somewhat recognizable.”
Obama’s remarks come amid the Trump administration’s large-scale deportation campaign targeting illegal immigrants who entered the country during the Biden years. According to Fox, more than 100,000 individuals have been deported since Trump returned to office.
Despite those efforts, an estimated 20 million illegal immigrants remain in the U.S., border czar Tom Homan stated during a Monday press briefing.
That said, Michelle Obama’s remarks regarding Trump’s deportations are hypocritical at the least; her husband became known as the “Deporter In Chief” during his two terms in office, sending millions of migrants back to their home countries.
In actuality, both during his first term and now, President Obama’s enforcement actions are similar to those of Trump.
The “Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration enforcement priorities and practices achieved two goals” during the Obama years, noted the Migration Policy Institute in early 2017.
“Increasing penalties against unauthorized border crossers by putting far larger shares into formal removal proceedings rather than voluntarily returning them across the border, as had been longstanding practice; and making noncitizens with criminal records the top enforcement target,” MPI added.