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In almost 55 years in public life as a reporter and commentator no issue has proven more volatile than immigration, and in no issue have I been more out of step with the majority of folks who follow me. It’s not just me.
Immigration is the issue that made Trump President. Most Americans surveyed approve of deportation, and even imprisonment without hearing in places like El Salvador, if that’s what it takes to end illegal immigration. Even foreign students who earn advanced degrees are persona non grata once their visas have expired. So we educate them and then export them without getting the benefit from the education we subsidized. It makes little sense.
ICE agents are cheered on by many Americans even in blue states, despite heavy-handed tactics that have terrified many in the immigrant community. Soon, no place will be safe for those without proper documentation, not schools, not courts, not homes. Life is already hugely disrupted in immigrant communities from coast to coast. It is painful to watch hard-working, law abiding, family oriented, migrants being treated like they have the plague or are all hideous criminals.
When surveys are cited, proving migrants do not increase the rate of violent crime, the statistics are dismissed as irrelevant. When crops are not harvested because there are not sufficient workers in the fields or the meat packing or poultry processing plants even the pain of more expensive food or childcare or landscaping or construction will most likely not change the minds of people who have zero tolerance for the undocumented.
It is like we want to burn the bridges that brought us here from the four corners of the planet to forge this unique and wonderful country.
A Trump appointed, conservative Republican federal judge just put the Constitution ahead of his political benefactor. Judge Fernando Rodriquez on Thursday ruled that the current migrant surge did not constitute an “invasion” sufficient to justify detaining and expelling migrants without hearing their side of the story. The Brownsville Texas-based jurist ruled Thursday that the mere fact that alleged members of the Venezuelan street gang Tren de Aragua were present in the U.S. did not mean they were either here illegally or are “alien invaders” under the 1789 Alien Enemies Act. The court ruled that detainees could file lawsuits challenging their deportation to deep dark prisons like the one in El Salvador currently holding 140 Venezuelans who never had a chance to tell their side.
Obviously criminals do not deserve admission to our country or our sympathy. But how do we know they are criminals? And what about obviously sympathetic individuals like the four-year-old kid with cancer who was expelled the other day, and now cannot get his medication? There are 1000’s of similar stories. From gangbangers to ailing children, federal courts are stepping up and saying ‘wait a minute’, ‘who is who?’ and ‘what’s your side of the story?’ before handing down the bum’s rush or exiling people to that cellar in El Salvador.
It is one thing to enforce the nation’s immigration laws, it is another to look away and pretend we just don’t know what is happening in our name.
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