Recent scenes on the news might make you wonder where exactly we are living. From masked men “disappearing” people off of the streets to the military being deployed in a law enforcement capacity on our city streets to a U.S. senator being handcuffed by law enforcement for asking questions at a press conference, more and more America feels like a third-world country.
To be clear, the president has the authority to deport those who are here illegally. He did not make it a secret that he was going to use that authority to its fullest extent while he was campaigning last year. A majority of Americans, knowing these facts, voted for him. And if we truly believe in the rule of law, then law enforcement officials should be able to enforce the law. President Trump is not the first American president to deport those who are here without authorization, and he will not be the last.
That being said, the sheer scale of the president’s deportation program, and the use of brute force to carry out that plan have led to scenes that look like those that we are more accustomed to seeing in authoritarian nations abroad than here in the United States. President Trump promised greatness, and here in his first six months we are still waiting for anything even remotely resembling that promised greatness. Instead, what we have gotten so far is harmless incompetence at best and, at worst, abject cruelty. But we sow what we reap, and when Americans elected someone who cares more about theatrics and image than actual policy, we get a man who is willing to call in the National Guard so that he can look tough despite that decision escalating tensions and creating further instability on our city streets.
Nothing happening in Los Angeles makes our southern border more secure. If anything, it draws border agents and resources away from the border, making it less secure. There is no debating that last November Americans voted for secure borders, deporting those who are here illegally and engage in criminal behavior, and for fixing an immigration system that was broken long before Trump was president. But did the majority of Americans really vote for the cruelty of ripping families apart and the brutality that we are seeing carried out on our city streets by ICE agents? Is that who we aspire to be as a nation?
Both parties in Washington bear responsibility for an immigration system that has been in dire need of reform for decades. Both parties have had an opportunity to create a system that makes it easier for immigrants to come to our nation legally, while securing the border and offering a fair opportunity to those who have been here without authorization for years and created lives while contributing to the American economy and society. Instead, both parties have continuously kicked the can down the road until the issues created by a broken system came to a head. An example of the dysfunction of Washington on this issue can be seen in last year’s border bill. Both sides had seemingly come to a compromise that addressed, albeit not fully, the issues surrounding our immigration system, and then because then-candidate Trump benefited more from the broken system than he did a solution, he demanded that Republicans renege on their promises. And now that he has come to power again, he has surrounded himself with the cruelest, most extreme anti-immigrant advisors he can find, making the chances of any meaningful reform almost zero.
The goal of those advisors, to deport every unauthorized immigrant in the United States, an estimated 12 million people, is as impractical as it is immoral. It is disingenuous and frankly un-American to treat those who have been here for years and created productive lives for themselves the same as those who engage in criminal behavior. The only crime committed by the vast majority of these individuals is trying to create a better life for their families and escaping the poverty of their homes.
And so here we are, at a crisis decades in the making, as the Republican Party became increasingly extreme on immigration and the Democratic Party continued to be seemingly impotent to affect any change, despite holding power several times. Our only hope is that this too will pass and that the next time we have an opportunity at meaningful reform it won’t be too late.