U.S. veteran David Brown told a congressional hearing this week that he was utterly devastated to discover that President Trump's promise to deport undocumented immigrants apparently included his own undocumented wife.
Brown, who described himself and his wife as evangelical Christian ministers who help the needy, admitted he voted for Trump because he was "an idiot" and that "evangelical Christian people were lied to." The lie in question appears to be Brown's personal belief that Trump's frequently stated intention to conduct the largest mass deportation in American history would somehow exclude Brown's wife specifically.
"I can't believe this is America," Brown lamented to lawmakers, apparently having missed the part of Trump's campaign where the then-candidate promised this would, in fact, be America.
Brown joins a growing cohort of Trump supporters grappling with the philosophical quandary of whether campaign promises should actually be kept. His wife, who has lived in the United States for decades and holds a green card, was recently detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement—an agency Trump explicitly promised to empower for exactly this purpose.
When asked why he voted for Trump, Brown replied that he believed deportations would only target criminals, not people "devoted to serving others." This interpretation apparently stems from Brown's innovative reading of Trump's speeches, in which he somehow missed the words "mass," "deportation," and "everyone."
The veteran's case represents the latest in a pattern of Trump voters expressing surprise that Republican immigration policies affect immigrants. Earlier this year, Wisconsin resident Bradley Bartell watched ICE agents detain his Peruvian wife at the airport following their honeymoon, yet told reporters he does not regret his vote for Trump. Bartell has since called for ICE reform while maintaining his support for the president who explicitly campaigned on aggressive ICE enforcement.
In 2017, Indiana Trump voter Helen Beristain watched her undocumented husband get deported to Mexico despite having no criminal record, having previously told reporters that Trump would "just keep us safe" and not "tear up families." Her husband's deportation apparently came as a surprise, despite Trump's border wall being the centerpiece of his 2016 campaign.
Political scientists note that Brown's shock follows a well-established pattern among conservative voters of supporting punitive policies under the assumption they will only punish other people. "The leopards eating faces has really accelerated under this administration," noted one researcher, referencing the popular Leopards Eating People's Faces Party framework.
Representative Lou Correa captured the irony in a recent tweet, noting that "President Trump promised to arrest the worst of the worst, but he's arresting Evangelical ministers who voted for him." Trump's campaign promises, it turns out, were delivered with his characteristic attention to detail—which is to say he never actually specified that "the worst" would be determined by anything other than immigration status.
