Looking Back to My Comments on How to Handle Immigration

 

I have been looking back at my earlier comments on what I recommend immigration activists do to see how they stack up to how things have proceeded (thus far).  

Well, first of all I was wildly over-optimistic in thinking that labor shortages would eventually make Republicans relent.  There is no sign of it yet.

But what about my recommendations to a activists?  My suggestions were as follows:

Flood social media with images of ICE outrages. Done. And it seems to be working, at least in terms of shifting public opinion.

Send Congress to investigate detention centers. Congress has been doing its best, but ICE has frequently not been complying.

Deploy white people. That has certainly been done in Minnesota. Not that there has been much choice. People who are not white in Minneapolis are not safe.

Have a song and a symbol.  I recommended something well-known or easily learned, something that comes from the heart, and something that conveys moral authority.  The cute costumes in Portland were a good start.  Minneapolis appears to have come up with a song -- "Lean on Me."  It seems a good choice -- well-known or easily learned, and conveying a sense of solidarity. 

Make Stephen Miller our hate sink. Stephen Miller has been mentioned, but so far Team Trump has managed to deflect -- making Greg Bovino the face of mass deportations and then offering him up as their sacrifice, also drawing attention to Kristi Noem. Kristi Noem may end up losing her job, for all the good that will do, but Miller seems safe.

Avoid causing violence or disruption. I wrote that about a month after there had been riots in Los Angeles -- not on a par with the 2020 riots, but riots nonetheless. Since then, ICE has launched other blitzes -- primarily in Chicago and Minneapolis, but on a smaller scale in Washington, DC, Boston, Charlotte, and New Orleans. Clashes, confrontations, hostile insults and the like happened, but no riots on a comparable scale to Los Angeles. Let's keep it that way, and cut down even on the hostile insults.

Create a pipeline for ICE officers who want to quit. It has occurred to me that the one advantage of ICE agents wearing masks is that if they ever do want to quit, they can blend back into society without their past being known. It is irrelevant, however. ICE has grown, rather than shrunk.

Above all, seek out allies and minimize enemies. I made some suggestions.

Immigrants and immigration activists. Obviously.

Anti-Trump activists. Ditto.

The Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has taken a strong position against these mass deportations.

Evangelical megachurches. I was reading accounts of ICE raids on Evangelical mega-churches and hopes they would join the general outrage once their own were targeted. So far that has not happened. However, mainline Protestant churches, long forgotten, have appeared out of the woodwork and voiced their opposition.

Veterans. I hoped that Afghan War veterans would speak up on behalf of Afghans who what put their lives on the line for us and were facing being returned to the Taliban. Certainly Afghan War veterans were great champions of their comrades who Biden failed to get out of Afghanistan. This time around, however, they have disappointed..

Animal lovers. I suggests this because pets had been abandoned after their owners were arrested. It seemed like a good hook for people all across the political spectrum. Nothing much seems to have happened, though.

Texas and Florida Republicans. There is some sign that Republican politicians from both states are becoming concerned that mass deportations will hurt their prospects. Whether it will lead them to support actual constraints on ICE remains to be seen.

Police. This has been a mixed result. On the one hand, when bystanders interfere with ICE making arrests, local police have little choice but to enforce laws against obstructing law enforcement. Anyone who wishes to engage in civil disobedience and seek to physically block ICE needs to understand the consequences. And this has hurt police-community relations. On the other hand, police seem to be widely outraged by La Migra's failure to meet with the most basic professional standards enjoined on ordinary police.

Unions. There have been unions championing members.

Employers. This has happened to some degree with small employers. Big money interests have been extraordinarily craven, which is a shame. The thing most likely to put this outrage to an end is if big money interests use their influence against it.