The Trump/Project 2025 administration continues to shock and awe anyone who can still think clearly after six months of the concerted dismantling of every American value (“ICE arrest in Baltimore courthouse ‘detrimental’ to justice, city sheriff’s office says,” July 2). Federally deputizing and distracting 700+ local law enforcement agencies in political service to Trump’s war on immigrants and naturalized U.S. citizens is a horribly misguided idea for at least two hugely important reasons.
First, ICE has its federal mission and personnel to conduct it, while local law enforcement has its own mission. ICE “287(g) programs” distract local law enforcement from their local duty “to protect and serve” all community residents. That duty includes not just basic patrol, first response and court preparation responsibilities but also investigating organized crime, identity theft, internet scams, porch pirate proliferation and solving cold cases.
ICE distracts our local cops with its commando-style paramilitary raids and abductions by masked ninja-like operatives. ICE actions in courthouses take aim at immigrants who cooperate with court processes, who show up as crime victims and witnesses. Arresting even one such non-threatening person sends a tidal wave of fear rippling through the immigrant community, exactly what the Biden-era protected areas (courts plus schools, churches and health care facilities) were designed to combat.
But because Joe Biden did it, Trump 2.0 seems compelled to undo it — the same dumb knee-jerk MO of Trump 1.0 regarding Barack Obama’s accomplishments. The result will be an increase in preying on immigrants by the criminal element: robbery, protection scams, sweatshop labor and human trafficking, as the immigrant community withdraws from reliance on no-longer-safe court systems. Ditto an increase in disease and health problems as immigrants withdraw from seeking health care in no-longer-safe hospitals or clinics. Ditto a decrease in literacy, bilingualism and knowledge in general as immigrants withdraw from no-longer-safe schools, colleges and ESL programs.
Trump/Project 2025 are fine with all that — getting the 98% to cannibalize each other divides us and lets the 2% run off with even more “Big Beautiful” tax cuts while we 98%ers get service cuts to our safety nets and more national debt to pay off.
The second impact is just starting to be felt as fruits and vegetables ripen without the workers needed to harvest them. This will predictably result in increased unharvested food waste, less produce sales, more failed American farms or fallow fields and definitely even higher food costs.
All this to say nothing of the deliberate and intentionally cruel immigrant family separation policy that appalled the world during Trump’s first term, which is now promising to affect tens of thousands of children, while their parent(s) are whisked away to Alligator Alcatraz or dozens of other makeshift pre-deportation prison camps, before being shipped out to god knows where, regardless of where they came from.
I urge people to remember virtually every single one of us — even Trump and his gang — came from “somewhere else,” be it Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania or South or Central America, and willingly or not. Before we charge around like bulls in a china shop, shredding people’s lives and livelihoods, we need to buckle down and create that elusive “Pathway to Citizenship” for non-violent, productive immigrant residents. At the same time, we need to use U.S. foreign aid to help poorer countries stabilize and become more attractive to their own residents.
The ICE 287(g) program is a terrible idea, and it is ethically unconscionable in its execution. I urge the eight Maryland counties that have joined in doing ICE’s job for ICE to back out today. Our state and federal politicians must insist on order and basic due process in ICE’s performance of its duties, not the chaos and confusion inherent in playing up to Trump’s enormous ego, tiny vocabulary and constantly flip-flopping orders, statements and media posts.
We aren’t a tinpot dictatorship here yet, but we are making good progress toward becoming one. Where’s Lafayette when we need him?
— Lou Curran, Baltimore
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