At the beginning of every year, I take some time to make a vision board.

I scroll through Pinterest aimlessly, searching for the perfect photos and quotes to replicate the version of me I want to be, the goals I want to accomplish, the dreams I want to chase or create. I am usually so ambitious, so hopeful. This year, though, things are entirely different.

Pinterest has always been my “safe” app. It’s where I go when I want to achieve a dopamine high that isn’t riddled with the terrible reality of the state of our world. I know that may seem out of touch. I know that might not seem resilient, however, it is a personal coping skill that has kept me willing and able to consume the insurmountable amount of violent news that has consumed my other social media feeds for the past several years.

As I was scrolling, I saw a post I did not expect on this platform. It was a protest sign, a timely one at that. It read, “You can’t call someone ‘illegal’ when you voted for a felon.”

At first, I was uncomfortable. Not because I disagreed. Not because I don’t share outrage at this administration and the way they are terrorizing innocent people, but because this was my little bit of peace, this moment of planning my future.

I sat with that uncomfortable feeling. I realized how extremely selfish it was of me. How convenient it is to be able to just “escape” from reality. To have the ability to scroll through an app planning my future when thousands of people wake up every single day in this country, fearing what theirs will look like. How privileged it is to have moments of being just uncomfortable. I think it is important for us to have those moments, especially in light of what is happening in our country at this time in history.

Current President Donald J. Trump’s biggest talking point during the 2024 election was immigration enforcement. At the Conservative Political Action Conference in March 2023, Trump stated, “The sinister forces trying to kill America have done everything they can to stop me, to silence you, and to turn this nation into a socialist dumping ground for criminals, junkies, Marxists, thugs, radicals and dangerous refugees that no other country wants.”

According to the Washington Post, the New York Times wrote he would, “round up undocumented immigrants in mass migrant camps and employ a speedier way to deport them known as ‘expedited removal.’” There were several sources that pointed out the ethical issues in his promises and statements. They questioned how the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE, would be able to produce the number of legal deportations he was proposing. Since being sworn into office last January, we have come to understand that legality was never a priority of his.

According to an article by Inside Higher Ed, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security revoked protections for hospitals, churches, schools and college campuses within 48 hours of Trump’s second term. These areas had previously been off limits for immigration enforcement action.

Children and adults in the education system have been conditioned to accept this reality. We were force-fed protective measures: shooter drills, videos and slogans like ‘run, hide, fight.’

We were promised that if something like this ever happened at our school, the police would be on their way to protect us, to neutralize the situation. And while I could argue that stricter gun policy could have changed mine and so many others’ experiences in the education system growing up, there will always be those who don’t agree. They will blame the shooter, their family or a mental illness. There will always be those who say that these tragedies are unavoidable. They will talk about how unfortunate it is that children are subjected to this reality, but there will be justice, law and order. The threat can and will be neutralized.

So I ask, what danger do children and adults in the education system pose to this country? Why are we being told that an elementary school child who is learning how to do simple addition is who we need to be protected from? What threat does someone pursuing higher education to contribute to our society pose to our government?

The simple answer is they don’t. There is no amount of propaganda that our current government can utilize to convince the generation that grew up hiding under desks and running from the person with a mask and a gun that the problem is our peer, our teacher, our janitor, our classmate or our friend. The biggest threat to us was never the person in the room with us, but the government that didn’t protect us, all of us. The same can be true now.

Your biggest threat as an individual in this country is not the person who came here illegally, or their children in schools, but the government that revokes the laws to protect safe spaces. It is the government that is allowing officers to drag people out of their homes and kidnap them. The government is who gave us masked individuals who arrest people at immigration courts.

It is what allows entire neighborhoods to be shut down — that celebrates ICE agents who gun down people in the streets and then grant them full immunity. The biggest threat to the American people is those who try to convince us that our neighbors, our classmates, our coworkers are our enemy. This administration is tormenting human beings and calling it immigration enforcement. They have given guns to untrained individuals and called them federal agents. They are meeting protest and solidarity with violence and force. They are spewing hateful rhetoric and trying to contort it into humanity.

In George Orwell’s book “1984,” we are given this quote: “But if there was hope, it lay in the proles. You had to cling to that. When you put it in words, it sounded reasonable: it was when you looked at the human beings passing you on the pavement that it became an act of faith.”

A prole is a member of the working class, who may be seen as overlooked or labeled as unimportant in the eyes of those in power. What Orwell is trying to convey to the reader is the necessity for collective consciousness. He is telling us that the people’s power lies in trusting what they know to be true versus what they are told to believe by the government. I think the simplest way to view this in our current climate is to ask yourself, if the people that currently hold power are telling you who to hate and why to hate them, with no regard for what you think, should you trust what they say?