The last significant comprehensive immigration reform was enacted in 1986 with the Immigration Reform and Control Act. In it, included were provisions for legalization of some undocumented immigrants. It’s high time that such provisions be re-examined and debated.
It’s cynical and partly true that comprehensive immigration reform hasn’t been seriously debated for decades for political reasons: Republicans run on xenophobia each election and benefit from fearmongering; and Democrats never place immigration as a top priority because it’s a tough sell and they’d rather concentrate on more popular policies.
But it’s also true that significant comprehensive reform is bogged in quicksand because as a nation Americans cannot agree on the many dimensions, complexities and nuances of immigration. Most Americans will agree that there must be border security, but whatever happens after that in the way of undocumented immigrants, there’s no clear consensus.
Los Angeles Protests and Riots
What happened in Los Angeles is a perfect example of how our thoughts on the undocumented vary from region to region. The law is clear about deportation. President Donald Trump didn’t make it up. But each administration has approached it differently as to how that law will be enforced, how it will be prioritized. It is true that the law calls for deportation of illegals — but the law doesn’t say there must be roundups everywhere and that millions must be found and deported.
In Los Angeles where almost a million of its residents are undocumented, where the undocumented have been accepted as a part of the city’s cultural, economic and historical fabric, where they are valuable contributors to society – the undocumented population has been a feature that works well for that community, irrespective of what immigration law states. Of course, that community would prefer, the undocumented to be as it has always been prior to Trump 2.0.
Some Los Angelenos can even make an argument that why should other communities like white rural America (main proponents of mass deportation) — that have zero exposure to undocumented populations — dictate to us how we treat our undocumented in our community?
To Los Angelenos, especially to the Latino community, the ICE raids is looked upon as not just federal oppression and overreach but also racism. When you see videos on social media of ICE in California racial profiling brown people at gas stations, asking brown people driving on streets to pull over to question their legal status, watching ICE go into restaurants, churches, schools – it’s not difficult to imagine why Los Angelinos and other communities in California have had enough. It does appear what is happening to be excessive policing.
Mass deportation in the way of sweeping raids and ICE harassing individuals on the street who look to be undocumented is as how many California politicians are calling it – terrorizing and chaotic. The frequency and expansive operation to meet some internal Homeland Security quota – as much as 3,000 a day, over one million a year – suggests that we can expect more terror and chaos.
Politicizing ICE
Like Trump’s flipflopping on tariffs, the wishy-washy president is doing the same with mass deportation. Following the mass protests nationwide last week, Trump seemingly alarmed and open to concessions announced at a White House press briefing that he would create a new executive order to put a pause on select undocumented migrants, those who work on farms and hospitality. In that presser, he talked about illegal farmers’ valuable and irreplaceable contributions.
Then just this week, the Department of Homeland Security told staff that it was reversing guidance issued last week by Trump that agents were not to conduct immigration raids at farms and hotels. Agents must continue conducting immigration raids at agricultural businesses and hotels.
On top of that, the President called for ICE to expand deportation efforts in Democratic cities and “do all in their power” to achieve mass deportations. “ICE Officers are herewith ordered, by notice of this TRUTH, to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History,” the president posted on Truth Social.
Trump’s flipflopping on mass deportation is cavalier and with no rhyme or reason. It’s also sadistic to be giving and taking away hope – pause on deportation – in this case for farmers and hotel workers. It appears to be like a game for the president and him not fully understanding the weight of his decisions, their impact on real people and real lives about to be uprooted and families torn apart.
While enforcement of immigration laws is necessary – almost universally accepted by most Americans – we cannot ignore the fear and anxiety some communities and families are feeling. We must strive to seek common good, balance and fairness. Even though deportation of undocumented is the law of the land, history shows how laws are not necessarily for the common good as revealed over time, and certainly not a one-size-fit-all. What’s good for a community in rural white America isn’t always good for a metropolis like in this case Los Angeles.
No person of goodwill and good conscious can see what’s happening to undocumented migrants, those whose “only” crime is illegal entry, and ignore this social problem. It’s more than understandable, arguably a moral imperative even, that Americans have taken to the streets by the tens of thousands in protesting ICE’s tactics. But such protests must be peaceful.
As an immigrant community, we should also look to immigration enforcement with a soft heart, remembering our own motivations for coming to the United States. In this we will find, it’s not very different from those who are here illegally.
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