Story 40 of 52
By M. Snarky
Another controversy and another peaceful protest that morphed into a riot in Los Angeles which looks remarkably similar to a Dodgers World Series championship celebration. Some things will never change.
This time, it’s about federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the sanctuary city of Los Angeles within the sanctuary state of California enforcing federal immigration law, the media narrative of which is labeled as “ICE Raids.” When the citizens of L.A. got news of this, the peaceful protests began. Not soon afterward, the wolves amongst the peaceful protesters started vandalizing public and private property and then they started flying foreign flags and started burning American flags amongst many other things and then they started looting businesses and hurting people. This is the point at which the protesters completely lost my support for their cause, however noble it may have been.
President Trump, in his usual fascist bullying manner deployed the National Guard to support ICE allegedly without notifying Mayor Karen Bass or Governor Gavin Newsom. Mayor Bass blames Trump for the rioting yet resists cooperating with ICE. Governor Newsom blames Trump for the rioting yet resists cooperating with ICE. And then in Governor Newsom’s perpetual effort to both appear on national television and not let a crisis go to waste (right out of the Rahm Emanual playbook), thumbs his nose at Trump and promises to sue but does nothing to actually deescalate the violence. The idiocy of this is breathtaking.
Thomas Jefferson once said, “The government you elect is the government you deserve.” Well, here we are. Great job everyone.
For the record, I completely reject Trump dispatching military resources to my city – this is not 1930’s fascist Germany or Italy. People are going to get hurt and killed, and this blood will be on the hands of Trump, Newsom, and Bass, the trifecta of disastrous political leadership.
That being said, I don’t see this immigration issue as black-and-white at all; I see this as the culmination of failure of leadership at the federal, state, and city government levels for decades which has brought this city to another boiling point. The only black-and-white that I can discern from all of this chaos is that you have the open border advocates (typically Democrats) on the one side, and you have the law-and-order advocates (typically Republicans) on the other side, and on this illegal immigration issue, the two of these are mutually exclusive.
I am a U.S. citizen that was born right here in Los Angeles. I’m also a migrant every time I travel internationally, and not only do I have to prove who I am with my U.S. government issued passport, I also have to fill out a visa form, letting the foreign government know whether I’m there for business or leisure, where I’m going to, and where and for how long will I be staying. Sometimes they also want to know what my profession is and my annual income, whether I’m married or single, and so on and so forth. My face is scanned. My thumbprint is taken. This is all in an effort to validate that I am who I say I am. In the background, I’m sure that my information is checked with INTERPOL and FBI databases to assure that I am not a terrorist threat, or a criminal, or a person of interest. Only after getting clearance, will I be allowed into their country. Fair enough.
It’s a slight inconvenience, but not insanely difficult. I have no idea what actually happens to someone who is red flagged other than they are taken to a secure area, but it is probably very inconvenient and very likely to include incarceration and deportation, and maybe a strip search and a body cavity check and a beating or two, none of which I want to experience.
But here at the southern border of the U.S. we are not so vigorous as out international counterparts, and this is where things really start falling apart with our immigration policy and law enforcement, and I think that there is plenty of blame to go around.
I believe that the federal government is complicit (dare I say derelict?) when they elected to not vigorously enforce existing federal immigration laws at the porous southern border for decades, under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
The state of California is complicit in its effort to ignore federal immigration laws by allowing undocumented migrants to work in the state without proper federal authority or approval, essentially ignoring appropriate lawful identification and immigrant status verification.
The Los Angeles City Council are complicit in their sanctuary city policy prohibiting city resources from being used to assist federal immigration enforcement. Was this actually approved by the voters in the city, or is this just a flex?
The California Democratic party is complicit for allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses and for providing public services at the expense of the state taxpayers like in-state tuition discounts for universities, Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid program) coverage, financial aid like Cash Assistance for Program for Immigrants (CAPI), food and nutrition assistance like California Food Assistance Program (CFAP), and not requiring voters to present photo identification at the polls. This, I think, smacks of pandering to a group of vulnerable people for a voting bloc that will keep Democrats in power. These programs and services also make the state of California a magnet for illegal immigration.
The Republican party is complicit due to their “pro-business” platform (which really isn’t) and wanting cheap labor for their business constituency, so they turn a blind eye to the illegal immigration issue, allowing undocumented migrants to work in the U.S. without proper identification or authority, again, taking advantage of a group of vulnerable people.
The corruptible Mexican government is complicit for not enforcing international immigration law but being that remittances from the U.S. are a significant part of the Mexican economy (around 4%, or $64.75B), they have zero incentive to do so. By the way, this money is not spent stateside stimulating local economies; it is exported U.S. dollars. They are complicit for allowing the drug cartels to cross the U.S. border virtually unabated, providing access for them to sell their deadly drugs inside the U.S. Moreover, having an economy that is so terrible that its poorest citizens choose to leave for better opportunities in the U.S. speaks volumes about Mexico’s domestic economic problems that have been ongoing for generations.
The undocumented immigrants are complicit themselves in that many of them have been here in the U.S. for decades and either let their visitor or work visa expire or crossed the border illegally yet have not applied for a visa renewal or citizenship or a green card or amnesty. To me, this means that they want to remain a foreign national and have no desire to become a legal U.S. citizen or obtain legal permanent U.S. residency – which is fine – but that does not give them a pass to not have their legal documents in order. I’m not going to buy the media narrative that this is because they are afraid of deportation, or that they are poor, or illiterate, or ignorant – it’s paperwork, not rocket science. There are also plenty of free or low-cost public resources available to help them navigate the process, so there really aren’t any excuses not to do it, which begs the question; why haven’t they already done so?
The media are also complicit in changing the language of the narrative from “illegal alien” (a common term used in law) to “undocumented alien” then to “undocumented migrants” or “undocumented immigrants” and then to just using “immigrants” or “migrants,” intentionally blurring the line between legal and illegal status and conflating the significant differences between them and also downplaying the possibility of any criminals crossing the border into the U.S. illegally which may be a low number, like maybe, I don’t know, let’s say a few cartel members here or a few street gang members there or a few murderers and rapists trickling in across the border here and there, but it is definitely not zero. But the fact that we don’t really know this information should enrage Americans of all stripes.
My understanding is that if someone crosses the border of a sovereign country without going through the proper customs checkpoints and processes, they are violating the law. This is known as an illegal entry. If they are a foreigner, they are considered an alien (a term from the 14th century), ergo, illegal alien, the specific term of which has been around for about 100 years. It seems harsh and maybe sounds a little bit dehumanizing, but maybe it should be because they are actually breaking the law! Is breaking the law not a crime? It appears that it depends upon whom you ask.
Twisting a longstanding term like illegal alien into something more generic and friendly sounding like migrant is a serious dereliction of journalistic duty because there is a gulf of distinction between them. It’s like calling trespassing some squishy euphemism like unintentional intrusion. Would anyone call rape overly passionate hyper-sexual activity, or call murder sudden cessation of biological activity? No! Rape is rape, and murder is murder, and everyone knows what these words mean, both of which are heinous, serious crimes, but they are factually crimes. Trespassing is also a crime and so is illegal entry. But when facts are politically unpopular and get in the way of advancing a political narrative, the language is changed by the various factions in power to distract from the truth.
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts,” and John Adams said, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” In essence, facts are truth. Truth has meaning. Truth has weight. Truth cannot be altered. Truth actually matters.
But when truth becomes inconvenient and gets in the way of a political movement, truth must become the enemy. Truth must be entirely disregarded or distorted, dissected, parsed, and contorted into something that it isn’t. Through this process, truth becomes fiction, and an alternate definition (the untruth) is brought forward as a replacement. This is how illegal alien becomes immigrant. This is how the narrative is changed from someone who has factually entered the country illegally and violated the law (the truth) to someone who is just a poor, honest, hard-working person looking for a better life for their family (the replacement), which may have some truthiness to it, but it does not excuse the actual truth. My head truthfully hurts thinking about this.
I think our political leadership across the board need to grow up and deescalate the rhetoric and the finger pointing, and the name calling and take a step back and ask themselves this: How can we cooperatively reform this colossal failure of immigration policy in a fair, compassionate, humane manner? These politicians created this unbelievable quagmire and now it is time for them to clean it up.
I have a few suggestions:
- Discontinue the ICE raids. These appear to be too much like a Gestapo tactic. In political speech; bad optics.
- Lock down the U.S. Mexico border. Might be hard, but it’s not impossible. Lots of other countries do it.
- Allow for a temporary immigration law enforcement hiatus with a hard one-year deadline to allow undocumented immigrants already residing in the U.S. for more than one-year to file appropriate forms. This puts the onus of documentation on their shoulders while also giving them the opportunity to choose whether to stay or to leave.
- Make it a felony for U.S. employers to knowingly hire undocumented workers. It’s not asking too much for job applicants to prove their immigration status if they want to work here.
- Make it a felony to enter the U.S. illegally. Lots of other countries do this too.
- Vigorously enforce immigration laws after the one-year hiatus expires. No more catch-and-release policies.
This, I think, will give undocumented immigrants the time and the space needed to get their legal affairs in order while also deterring illegal entry. If they intentionally choose not to do it, then the full force of the law should be applied to them. No more excuses.
These are not inhumane, unreasonable, or radical ideas, rather, I believe they are sensible and achievable.
Our spineless political leadership just needs to grow the backbone to do it.
Supporting links:
https://oag.ca.gov/immigrant/resources
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/punishment-for-illegally-entering-countries
https://www.cato.org/blog/illegal-alien-one-many-correct-legal-terms-illegal-immigrant
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/32621-facts-are-stubborn-things-and-whatever-may-be-our-wishes
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1745-everyone-is-entitled-to-his-own-opinion-but-not-to
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