David Greising: What are Mayor Brandon Johnson’s plans for stopping abuses by immigration agents? |
A bright orange whistle has become the symbol of resistance to federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, Chicago and other major cities.
This week, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson sought to blow the whistle in a big way by calling for action in a speech to the National Press Club in Washington.
“As a nation, we have to really look at the model that was set during the Civil Rights Movement. We need a well-trained, organized opposition to ultimately expand the resistance that is already afoot in the country,” Johnson told the Press Club on Wednesday. “Saving our democracy is the most patriotic thing we can do in this season.”
But if this was Johnson’s big moment to issue a call, unfortunately, it was a whimper. He recited a litany of past actions but set no plan for what to do next.
Maybe that’s because he sequenced his effort backward: First, the big national speech; next, planning meetings at the U.S. Conference of Mayors; then, at some undefined time — two weeks, maybe, as is the trend in D.C. these days — he’ll unveil a master plan for Chicago that could be a pattern for the country.
There may yet be time for Johnson to offer concrete details and seize the national spotlight again. But to get to where Johnson and his fellow mayors need to go, rhetorically and as leaders, they have work to do.
For starters, they need to reckon with how the power dynamic of the current immigration struggle contrasts with the civil rights era.
In the days of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others, the federal government imposed its will on the racists running cities and states, in a drive toward racial equity that........