Violence in this good cause is not good
Donald Trump is gleeful. He has mobilized the California National Guard to repress violent anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) demonstrations in Los Angeles. This will cause more violence, which is what Trump and his bile-filled adviser Stephen Miller want.
Their effort to round up and deport immigrants has flagged. The LA violence gives them an excuse to use military force against their opponents. You don’t have to be Nostradamus to understand where this is headed.
I have no problem with people protesting against ICE. I also have no problem with deporting people who have entered the US illegally. We need the labor. But I also know that illegal immigration is a big political problem that doesn’t favor rational decision making.
That’s why Barack Obama and Joe Biden (once the epidemic had subsided) deported a lot of people. But they did it without the public exercise of muscle that provokes protests. They provided the due process the law obligates the government to provide. Results:
The Trump Administration claims to have deported 140,000 so far this year. That is exaggerated, but even if true the pace is slower than Obama and not much faster than Biden.
Trump is grandstanding
Trump is playing to the grandstand. The ICE raids are a purposeful provocation. The resulting mess hides the Administration’s ineptitude and illegality in carrying out the deportations. And it pleases Trump’s cruelty- and violence-prone supporters.
It also provides a precedent for using the military inside the US, without a governor’s permission. That’s what Trump is really after. Despite posse comitatus, He figures the courts won’t stop him if there is disorder and rioting. The judiciary often defers to the President on national security issues.
Time to calm down
Continuing the violence will not do any good. Nonviolent civil disobedience is what the situation calls for. It won’t be easy, as ICE will riot even if the protesters don’t. But handing Trump an issue he can use to rally popular sentiment is a big mistake. The demonstrators in LA need to cool it. Not because they are wrong, but because they are right.
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