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Yes, I'm sorry to say this is exactly right. The fact that the Trump admin has decided to pursue the illegal immigration problem by staging Brownshirt-style street battles between ICE and radicalized Democrats is just black-pilling. If I was a Soros master-of-the-universe type, and I was intent on preserving widespread illegal immigration, and I found myself in the impossibly fortunate position of being able to mind control Trump, I think I'd basically have him continue down the path he's already elected to follow—what he is doing right now is working splendidly.
Immigration enforcement was always going to be an extremely charged and divisive undertaking. There is a sizable minority of the population that is fanatically opposed, a plurality moderate population that is fairly agnostic, and then a final MAGA faction that is all-in. The key to winning has always been disempowering the fanatics while not alienating the moderates. The employment focused approach is perfect for this: enforcement is directed against rich white people the fanatics probably don't even like; each rich white person employer probably employees a number of illegal immigrants, so you get way more bang for your buck per enforcement action; the rich white employers, unlike illegal immigrants, have a lot to lose, so they are likely to cooperate with your enforcement, or better yet, simply stop their illegal behavior once faced with a credible threat of punishment; and finally, once deprived of financial incentive for being in the country, the illegal immigrants deport at their own expense, without recourse to the legal system, and without generating any of the fraught issues that arise through forced deportation, like minor children being separated from parents, or citizen minor children being detained.
If you insist on supplementing this approach, removing dangerous criminal aliens with ICE could be justified, but the Trump strategy has still been far from optimal. Again, the priority is to disempower the fanatics while not alienating the moderates. You don't accomplish any of this by taking the fanatics and making them into martyrs: that just alienates moderates and fuels fanaticisim. You accomplish it by demoralizing the fanatics, and by making the fanatics look like fanatics to the moderates. If a fanatic is interfering with your operations, sure, try to arrest them. But if that fails, what is wrong with letting them go and then nabbing them the next day at work once things have cooled down? Then you can pile on the charges: resisting arrest, fleeing an officer, assaulting an officer, etc. This avoids making martyrs, and definitely demoralizes—there is a certain glamor to slugging it out with the cops, but not so much to being arrested at work and then subjected to cavity searches in a federal detention center for the next three years.
I can imagine some ICE higher-up saying, "you say that, but we can't let protestors dictate the tempo of our enforcement and removal operations. It would be giving in to the worst kind of heckler's veto." To which I say, why not? Why not let the fanatics win? If you are careful in selecting your targets, letting them win these standoffs has mostly upside. Let's say that ICE had turned back after Renee Good had blocked their operation and refused to come into custody, and then did a press conference on the dangerous child molester they were planning to arrest but couldn't because Good and co had interfered. This serves the second part of our strategy perfectly: make the fanatics look like fanatics to the moderates. It turns an operational loss into a strategic victory. The ICE higher-up: "But what if that child molester goes and molests a child because we didn't deport them?" Yes, what if? To be honest, it is very unlikely, and it would be tragic, but cynically speaking, it would probably go a long way to ensuring that you never have this problem again, right? What better serves the interests of children, turning Renee Good into martyr and your whole operation into a circus, or executing the occasional strategic retreat in order to win the war?
There is a Chinese meme where Trump is called "Trump the Nation-Builder" because his geopolitical blundering so often seems to serve the interests of the PRC. In the future, will mestizo peasants be praying to Trump in thanks for his efforts to delegitimize immigration enforcement? Will they light little candles with Trump's face on them and place them on their ofrendas to honor him as the patron saint of illegals? Looking at situation as it presently stands, it wouldn't shock me.
Amazing comment
This is hilarious
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