After weathering months of divorce rumors, Michelle Obama is wading back into politics with criticism of President Trump's immigration policies.
The former first lady said she is worried for immigrants living in the climate of "fear" surrounding Trump's deportations.
“And that … frightens me, it keeps me up at night,” she told the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast.
“How do you how do you feel comfortable going to work, going to school, when you know that there could be people out here judging you and who could upend your life in a second — that’s who I worry for right now.”
Michelle Obama has been mostly quiet about politics since failing in her efforts to elect Kamala Harris last fall.
Obama avoided naming Trump in her latest remarks, as she persisted in a passive-aggressive protest of Trump's historic comeback.
Her decision to skip Trump's inauguration in January - and Jimmy Carter's funeral - led to speculation of divorce that is ongoing.
Democrats have repeatedly accused Trump of skirting due process for those facing deportation, but Trump has said it is not possible to give trials to the millions of unlawful aliens on U.S. soil. And Trump and his team say Democrats are cozying up to foreign criminals while ignoring their victims.
Like she has often done, Obama attributed Trump's agenda to a supposedly pervasive "racism" in American society that she said has impacted her family, as she suggested immigrants are being targeted because of their skin color.
"And we know that those decisions aren’t being made with courts and with due process,” she said.
“There’s so much bias and so much racism and so much ignorance that fuels those kind of choices,” she claimed. "I worry for people of color all over this country, and I don’t know that we will have the advocates to protect everybody."
Obama pointed to immigration raids in her hometown of Chicago - which was overwhelmed by an influx of immigrants during the Biden-era border crisis - as an example of what she "fears" most about the second Trump administration.
"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 said.
“So, my fears are for what I know is happening out there in streets all over the city," she said.
