At the same time do I think that we should broaden the reasons for which we allow immigration, make asylum applications easier, speed up the process and expand the legal infrastructure needed to process the number of people who want to immigrate here? Also yes.
Our current system is overwhelmed by the numbers of potential immigrants. Even without increasing the quotas and making the requirements for permanent residence more flexible, there aren't enough Border Patrol officers, there aren't enough immigration judges, and the system is too opaque for most people to successfully navigate. That's one of the reasons why we have so much illegal immigration. People who are so desperate to leave the situation that they're in that they will risk everything to sneak in and live under the radar for the rest of their lives, just so that their children can grow up in a safe environment. I also believe that instead of mass deportations we should be finding a way to integrate the undocumented people who are already here into the legal side of our society. If they've been here for decades, working and paying taxes, raising their children and contributing to the community, wouldn't we want them here?
Something I hear from anti-immigration voices about the undocumented is that they've been here for years or decades, but have made no effort to legalize their status, so they should be unceremoniously deported. The problem with that stance is twofold: once you've come in illegally, if you make your presence known you run the risk of deportation, so many figure it's safer to just ride it out and hope they never get caught. The other side of the coin, at least in the current climate, is that people who have been "doing it the right way" are still being detained and deported. Legal permanent residents, visa holders, asylum applicants, all have been swept up in the ICE raids. Many of these regularly showed up for ICE appointments or court dates, only to be arrested there and subsequently deported.
The policy of zero tolerance is bad enough, but the implementation has been compared to a secret police operation, and the comparisons are not too much of an exaggeration.
On one hand ICE is simply implementing government policy. If the president and the Homeland Security Secretary have decided that the law will be enforced to the letter, they are just doing their jobs. Yet, the methods by which ICE is operating smell a lot like the secret police in a dictatorship. Bringing in the National Guard and the military to assist only strengthens this view. Every law enforcement agency in the country identifies its members to the public. If you're arrested, you know the name and badge number of the police officer or sheriff's deputy. Even the FBI, if executing a warrant or an arrest, will identify themselves. Not ICE. They are wearing masks, not wearing any kind of uniform, nor anything that identifies them as law enforcement officers. They violently restrain people without verifying that they have the right people, they operate without judicial warrants, they violently attack people who film or protest their actions. (Of course, the promised focus on violent criminals isn't happening, they're going after people who go to work, take their kids to school, and show up for court) They refuse to allow (legally mandated) Congressional oversight of their facilities. They are a shadowy outfit with no visible accountability. Pair this with how the National Guard is being sent in to conduct law enforcement support (or trash pickup and gardening duties) in several cities in addition to their partnering with ICE in California and you can see the beginnings of a national police force, even without squinting.
It's illegal to use the military for domestic law enforcement you say? Well, the military has been at the southern border all year. Not sure what they are doing precisely, but in theory they are backing up the Border Patrol, which is a domestic law enforcement agency. Illegal or not, Trump is doing it and he isn't being stopped. As for the National Guard, when they are activated, they are active duty military. Even when a court ruled that the use of the military in Los Angeles was illegal, it didn't seem to stop Trump from pledging to use them in other cities. Is it so much of a stretch to imagine that the president who is operating as a dictator would use ICE as the template for a national police force to arrest those engaging in criticism of him?
Dictators gonna dictate.
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