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Throwing in a quick post because I'm surprised it hasn't been discussed here (unless I missed it!), Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago sets up "ICE-free zones" in Chicago.
This comes on the heels of Trump sending in the national guard after Chicago PD apparently wouldn't help ICE agents under attack. I haven't read all the stuff about this scenario, but on the surface level it seems pretty bad, I have to say.
There's a video clip where that mayor is saying that Republicans want a "redo of the Civil War," amongst other incredibly inflammatory things. The Governor of Illinois is apparently backing the mayor up.
This refusal to help ICE and even outright claim that you're fighting a war with them I mean... I suppose Democrats have been doing it for a while. This seems... bad. I mean sure you can sugarcoat it and point to legal statues and such, but fundamentally if the local governments of these places are going to agitate so directly against the President, I can't blame Trump for sending in the national guard.
Obviously with the two party system we have a line and such, but man, it's a shame that our politicians have fully embraced the heat-over-light dynamics of the culture war, to the point where they really are teetering on the brink of starting a civil war. Not the social media fear-obsessed "civil war" people have been saying has already started, but real national guard vs. local pd or state military type open warfare. I just don't understand going this far, unless the Mayor of Chicago thinks that he can get away with it and Trump will back down.
Even then, brinksmanship of this type seems totally insane!
I suppose Newsom in CA has been doing it too, now that I mention it. Sigh. I hope that we can right this ship because man, I do not want to have to fight in a civil war I have to say. Having studied history, it's a lot more horrible than you might think.
Everyone throws oil into the fire and kicks mud around. From one perspective:
The government is deploying the military because of civil violations. Other types of civil violations involve running a red light, building a deck without a permit, accidentally spilling a small amount of pollutants, filing your taxes late (this is closest), letting your dog roam unleashed. If they are merely enforcing the current law, why in this manner? Does or should the military repel down helicopters to clear entire buildings and check everyone's tax documents on the presumption of guilt? Why is it doing differently here? If the law is wrong, why are they not changing regulations etc.?
From another perspective, sure, mass immigration is a threat against Western civilization and the other side hates patriots. But again, why are they not changing the laws to deal with this more thoroughly and why is all effort directed towards more pious coreligionists instead of Muslims or Hindus or Jews etc.?
From my own perspective, I have little idea what anyone's actually doing. It all seems like incompetence or self-sabotage, randomly flailing around with no coherence. I don't think anyone benefits besides China and goldbugs.
Because border security has always partly needed to be an optical illusion for economic reasons. It needed to be flexible: A scary bark with a less scary bite, to be tolerant of the massive illegal labor force that propped up multiple industries in this country. Republicans and Democrats alike projected the image of being somewhat strict on immigration all while allowing millions to work here for cheap. It was beneficial for both sides. Illegals got to bring home more money and the country could maintain an image of strictness that would deter massive amounts of other potential migrants, all while we benefitted from low wage labor. That cat is out of the bag now because progressives, through their oppressor lens, shed a light on it and started demanding more rights for "undocumented" workers.
The Republican tactic still appears to be optical, but they are cracking down harder on people overstaying their visas. This projects to other wannabe migrants that if you come here illegally, or temporarily, your ass will be deported when your status expires or you are caught and people have miraculously stopped showing up at the border.
The problem is that we have so many people on the left who are hellbent on pointing out the hypocrisy of the right for not deporting people in certain industries, or pointing to how racist they are, or pointing to how fascist they are, or pointing to how illegal their actions are that their 'all or nothing' game of immigrant chicken pushes a growing number of Americans to be in favor of 'nothing' and to upgrade border crossings to criminal offenses.
Refusing to follow court orders to desegregate a school or stop administering poll tests was also a civil issue. Failing to show up for Court is a civil matter.
At the end of the day, the relevant issue is not the category of violation but its social importance. It is not necessary or desirable to criminally charge most immigration violators. It is more than sufficient to support them. But it is necessary and important that this enforcement occur. We got to this point by permitting far too little enforcement of the law. Imagine a society where it was rare to arrest people for failure to appear. Consider how little respect for the courts there world be and how this might affect the orderly administration of society.
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