Sensible Immigration Policy Begins With Understanding, Not Gaslighting |
By now, we have heard the mantra that President Donald Trump was right to close the border, but wrong in his heavy-handed approach to immigration enforcement. We are also told that if he would have simply done what most Americans wanted, that is, arrest and deport violent criminals, then his poll numbers would be higher, and his administration wouldn’t find itself embroiled by crisis in the aftermath of two killings at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis.
But this claim—that the problem with Trump's immigration agenda is mainly about enforcement tactics—is flawed.
Seriously addressing this country's ongoing immigration crisis will require policy change, and to get to that point, there needs to be a narrative shift in this country away from indiscriminately criminalizing all undocumented people to humanizing them.
To put this in perspective, we need to realize that for America to enforce its way out of our current immigration disaster would trigger events like what's happening in Minneapolis all over the country.
The enforcement-first rhetoric put forth by this administration and its supporters is dangerous for the violence it exacts on immigrants and citizens alike.
Considering two sets of numbers makes this clear.
The first is how apprehensions at the border have dropped to zero. Beginning with asylum restrictions put into place at the end of Biden’s term in 2024, the flow of people into the US has fallen steadily. This becomes an issue when noting another figure, specifically, the Trump administration's goal of making 1 million deportations a year.
Of the 14-or-so million undocumented people in the US now, according to the Pew Research Center, the majority are long-term residents with more than 15 years living in the country. Logically then, with border removals no longer a factor in deportation figures as they were in prior administrations, reaching the 1 million mark will mean going after people who have spent years, perhaps decades, living in the US without legal status.
Finding and apprehending those people who have become central to the fabric of their communities is what Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is doing in Minneapolis. The chaos seen in Minneapolis will continue elsewhere, as coworkers, neighbors, and our fellow parishioners will disappear, triggering anger, protest, and perhaps worse wherever federal agents are sent.
Border Czar Tom Homan, claiming that there would be calm in Minnesota if local officials would just let ICE into its jails, and how the government is going after the “worst of the worst,” is also doing nothing more than gaslighting.
Consider Texas, where we find 1 in 4 of every immigrant who has been arrested in the country.
The Lone Star state has the second-most local law enforcement agencies, at 167, trailing only........