ICE overkills, trying to run up enforcement numbers

ICE overkills, trying to run up enforcement numbers

An execution in Biddeford, Maine

Gordon L. Weil

 

Many years ago, I commuted from Maine to New York City via Boston airport every week.  I could walk across the terminal, past the gate agent and step onto the plane.  There was no security line.   I could arrive at the gate just before it closed.

The world has changed, and that will never happen again.

From trust, we’ve gone to distrust.  From safety, we’ve gone to danger.  From rare shootings, we’ve gone to firing at will.  From avoiding threats, we’ve gone to “stand your ground.”  Is this progress?  Are we making America great again?

This week, where we’ve arrived was Biddeford, Maine.  ICE sought a person who had entered the country illegally.   They tried to make a driver stop his car so they could arrest him as that person.  He wasn’t that person.  He may have panicked.  There no evidence he wanted to harm the ICE agents, though he may have wanted to drive away.  The ICE agents killed him.

This was the second fatal shooting this week by ICE agents of a person who was not a threat.  There have been 11 ICE fatal shootings during President Trump’s second term.  They are part of his policy to reduce the number of potentially illegal immigrants, with 2,000 arrests daily as the target.    

He promised to halt the flow of unlawful entrants and has been generally successful, gaining wide public support.  Beyond that, he promised to rid the country of undocumented residents who are criminals, again receiving broad public support.  

But his ICE has gone after easy targets, productive members of the community who entered illegally perhaps many years ago.  They are neighbors of American citizens who have no problem with their presence, and he does not have wide public support for their removal.  His poll ratings on immigration became negative.

The reaction to Trump’s immigration policy shows that, like many public issues, there is a grey zone.  While ending illegal entry is generally what people want, they do not want wholesale deportation or an official army of vigilantes.

ICE has become a political football, but it enjoys Trump’s full backing. It is only restrained when its excesses become liabilities to his standing.  Some Democrats call for its outright abolition, but that demand has an echo of former President Biden’s excessively loose immigration policy that added to the scope of the problem.

The U.S. needs to enforce its immigration laws to ensure national security and the ability to carry out an agreed population policy.  If not called ICE, the country needs responsible policing of its laws.

The question boils down to whether the removal of any illegal person is worth the death of anybody – that person, ICE agents, protesters or innocent bystanders.  The answer should be that immigration enforcement is not worth any deaths, especially because each incident is not the life-or-death last chance the federal government will have to apprehend a violator.

It is evident that the use of firearms by ICE has become the first tool that comes to mind and comes to hand.  It should be the last.  ICE agents should be banned from using their weapons for enforcement.  They should only be used for self-defense when there is no other alternative.  Or disarm ICE agents, requiring them to call for armed help in limited situations.

In Biddeford, ICE agents had options they ignored. They include (a) step back, get out of the way, (b) damage the vehicle, not the driver, (c) let the driver get away at this time or (d) interview neighbors to find out about the person, making identification more certain and establishing where the person can be approached peacefully.

None of these options is possible if the object is mostly to add to the numbers of people removed, no matter what the cost.

Why has the world changed so radically from the time when I could stroll onto a plane to one where an innocent and friendly woman in Minneapolis is killed by an ICE agent who refused to step clear of her slow-moving car?

One cause is terrorism.  It’s a world-wide challenge.  Still, authorities seem to have ended ordinary crime by labelling every violent act as terrorism.  That allows for a violent response, often providing prompt justice at the end of a gun barrel.

Another is guns themselves.  The Second Amendment authorizes broad gun rights, but the Supreme Court initially allowed some limits.  Gun advocates see an absolute right, and the Court has been inching in their direction.  Increasing availability and access have been the path to the acceptance of greater use.

Perhaps most important is Trump and his partisans turning political opponents into the embodiment of evil.  That has led to the death of innocents and the growing threats to elected officials and judges.  Clearly, this is overkill.

  

NEW: Amerexit: Trump’s version of failed Brexit COMPLETE POST

Amerexit: Trump’s version of failed Brexit

You can’t go home again

 

Gordon L. Weil

Ten years ago, the British decided to leave the EU.  It was a bold but flawed move, and recovery will take many years, if ever.

The seeds that yielded Brexit have been planted on this side of the pond.  The U.S. version might be labelled Amerexit.  Britain left Europe; the U.S. is leaving the world. 

Brexit was driven by three forces – sovereignty, identity and history.   The U.S. is now being driven by the same forces.

In the British referendum, the majority opposed compromises with British sovereignty required by the EU’s rules and courts.  Reverence for the monarchy, though outmoded compared with other countries, promoted a sense of special status for its laws and customs.  England dominated the result, while Scotland and Northern Ireland rejected British exceptionalism.

The vast and unrestricted, EU single market gave British production access to a huge market, a real benefit to small businesses.  But a single market must have a single set of rules, and that took exclusive control away from Parliament and the U.K. courts.  That change was a price too high to pay, even if markets were lost.

Throughout its history, the U.S. has been reluctant to enter into international agreements that could limit its sovereignty.  It might accept accords only when they served American interests, and the U.S. could dominate.

NATO provided the U.S. a buffer against Soviet expansion and a guarantee that European nations would no longer drag it into war.  The organization, always led by the U.S., successfully served both purposes.  But its success led President Trump to mistakenly see it simply as a European plan for free-riding on American military protection.

Similarly, the U.N., created by an American initiative, aimed at reducing the chances of war, and maintained U.S. global influence.   It ended or contained some conflicts and provided humanitarian aid in line with U.S. priorities.

Trump’s policy is “America First,” and he seeks to quit international agreements.  Other countries see the policy as “America Alone,” a return to isolationism.  But Trump sees it as “America Only,” where others are expected to fall in line with unilateral U.S. policy, imposed by a superpower.  That explains his disappointment that NATO did not back his Iran war.

The EU requires the free movement of labor among its member countries, just as within the U.S.   But the Brexiteers worried about immigrants from Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, who could undermine the essence of British identity.

U.S. opposition to immigration reflects a similar concern about new Americans changing the nation’s ethnic mix.  American identity has become more narrowly defined, while the flow of immigrants, legal or not, has slowed.

To maintain the U.S. as a white, Christian country, as he sees its historic origin, he prefers immigrants from Norway or the white population of South Africa over Muslims and people of color. 

The third focus might easily have been dominant, overriding any potential costs from Britain’s leaving Europe.  Great Britain was once among the world’s great powers.  Its empire extended around the globe.  It is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.  In a nation whose military has more royal parade horses than battle tanks, the trappings of empire still matter.

The EU thwarted recognition of British history.  As an historical great power, Britain might emerge again to rise above being a mere member of Europe’s club.  Its worldwide recognition could bring it trade deals that would surpass the gains from being an EU member. For Brexiteers, “Leave” meant gaining rightful independence, while “Remain” made that impossible

Britain simply could not get over its history and adhered to an exalted view of itself not shared by other.  To the leavers, the EU was a trade deal that came at too high a cost for a great country.

Trump’s Make American Great Again is much the same.  In his view, glorious days in America’s past must be recovered.  The country was “Great” and it should be great “Again.”  To achieve this goal, the tariff policy of President McKinley should be revived as should the territorial policy of President Polk.   Its view of itself is decreasingly shared by others.

Brexit is failing.  Trade did not grow.  Small businesses closed.  Prosperity did not occur. Immigrants from outside Europe entered to staff essential services, especially healthcare.  The military became almost irrelevant.  If Brexit is not yet a catastrophe, it is a serious handicap.

Amerexit is also beginning to fail.  Tariffs do not improve the trade balance.  The U.S. loses the support of traditional European allies, who are realizing the changing nature of war and the Russian threat.  The limitations of American power have become clear.  Domestically, government policies make personal lives more costly.

Brexit and Amerexit fail for the same reason – their failure to recognize and adjust to change. You can’t go home again.

  

Amerexit: Trump’s version of failed Brexit

 Amerexit: Trump’s version of failed Brexit

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The case for immigration; one country decides

 

The case for immigration; one country decides

Swiss voters speak

 

Gordon L. Weil

Mostly overlooked, a Swiss referendum this week made a major statement on immigration that will echo in the U.S. and Europe.  

The vote in Switzerland, a direct democracy where citizens regularly hold popular votes to decide public policy, is proof that immigration won’t go away as an issue, at least in North America and Europe. 

While President Trump has largely made good on his promise to close the door to new arrivals, his policy won’t be the last word.  The Swiss put the question starkly.

Voters were asked to decide if the small country should place a cap on its population.  As the ceiling neared, the government would have to limit immigration, even preventing divided families from re-uniting.  It might have to forego the benefits of access to the EU market if it blocked employment for workers from elsewhere in Europe.

The Swiss vote was a reminder of a key element of the British decision to quit the EU.  One of the prime causes of Brexit was the increase in foreign workers. The European arrivals would take jobs from Brits, it was claimed, and, after they settled, they would reshape the country’s culture, shedding Merrie Olde England and the moribund British Empire.

The pro-Brexit voters believed that their country’s greatness would enable it to profit from going it alone.  The loss of Europeans both in the labor force and in the consumer marketplace did not weigh heavily enough to influence the outcome.  While the British economy did not collapse as a result, its growth slowed.

In Switzerland, the issue was placed before the voters by the largest political party, a right-leaning organization that opposes immigration.  It made several economic arguments that were meant to show that new arrivals would place excessive strain on the country.

It argued that there would not be enough housing to handle additions to the population.  Rural areas would be increasingly “paved over” to accommodate urbanization.  The schools would be stretched and the quality of education would decline.  And there would not be enough support personnel, like doctors, to handle the increase.

These comments assumed that Switzerland could not grow to accept a continual increase in its population.  The proponents did not consider that contributions, professional and financial, that immigrants could make would allow the national economy to grow.  Their position amounted to saying that the country could not prosper if it had a larger population.

The government expressed its opinion, opposing the initiative because it would harm the national economy. It argued that national prosperity would suffer if the country lacked enough labor to maintain and increase production.  Health care and construction, both dependent on foreign workers, would suffer.

The Swiss economy depends on links with other economies, notably the EU.  Ending immigration could isolate the country, potentially ending several international agreements.  The analysis also showed that immigrants contribute more to the economy than the demands placed by them on social welfare programs.

This debate has direct parallels with politics in Britain and the United States.  In Switzerland, under direct democracy, the people themselves got to decide, not politicians seeking to create and exploit fears.

The cap was opposed 55% to 45%.  The electoral defeat came because the large urban areas strongly opposed the proposal to limit population. The Swiss Confederation is divided into state-like “cantons,” and cantons like Zurich and Geneva favored immigration.  Small, rural cantons opposed.  It was the kind of rural-urban, conservative-moderate split seen in American politics.

The result may be explained by more than economic issues.  Proponents also cited the increase in the number of Muslims, making discrimination a factor.

The Swiss referendum reflected a debate about the nature of the world’s economies.  Nations may be so interconnected that the movement of workers is not a diabolical threat, as some claim, but an inevitable effect of the new economic links that extend well beyond national borders.

Nor is immigration the result of a globalization plot, designed to destroy national economies and turn power over to hidden economic rulers.   Supply lines that cross borders and workers whose skills offer value beyond their home countries are organic developments, not the result of sinister schemes.

The Swiss government opinion pointed out that approving the proposal would damage the country’s reputation, which is partly based on its creation and operation of the International Red Cross.  By capping its population, “Switzerland would isolate itself and lose its credibility,” it said.

This is the message of the Swiss referendum for the U.S., as it pursues an America First policy. The Swiss think as highly of themselves as do Americans.  Just as the U.S. serves as a constitutional and economic model, Switzerland serves as a humanitarian and democratic model.

Preserving national “credibility” and its thriving economy should be as important to the U.S. as it is to Switzerland.

Immigration policy: U.S. urgently needs an answer

Immigration policy: pride and prejudice

U.S. needs an answer

 

Gordon L. Weil

Immigration has become a bedrock issue in the U.S. and many European countries.  

Coming up with an American immigration policy has become so divisive that achieving consensus seems impossible.  Two presidents have brought the country to the point where a solution is stalemated.

A cornerstone of Donald Trump’s presidency has been ending unauthorized or illegal immigration.  He has succeeded in almost shutting down illegal entries over the southern border.  He has also pushed efforts to remove long-time, productive residents whose elimination would boost the number against whom he had moved.  He now targets legal immigration.

Joe Biden allowed foreigners to pour across the southern border.  He lacked an immigration policy, perhaps because he had other priorities.  He clearly reversed Trump’s first term approach, possibly to appeal to minority voters.  Instead, he created broad public concern that the U.S. could not even control its own borders.  He set the stage for the Trump revival.

The original Americans, aside from the Indians, were immigrants from western Europe.  Racially they and their descendants are white.   Whatever the Constitution and laws might say, their followers have expected that the country would remain predominantly white, and Blacks would remain subservient.  Underlying the issue of immigration policy is race. 

The most obvious expression of this sentiment was the exclusion of Chinese for many decades.  Today’s unfounded claim that the U.S. is a Christian country carries the implicit message that the white founders set binding terms for the future.  Minorities remain at the sufferance of the majority.

Demographic projections indicate that the U.S. will be majority non-white in two or three decades.  If voters would cling to white control, they could oppose immigration on the grounds that new arrivals will accelerate change in the nation’s racial make-up.  To some, the election of President Obama was a warning.

Humanitarian and economic causes have led millions to seek new homes in countries with stable, democratic governments and the opportunity for better lives.  Some want asylum and many want economic and social freedom.  The response can be a mixture of pride and prejudice.

Their influx has raised concerns in potential host countries.  People worry about the economic and social change resulting from major additions to the national population and the political power of the newcomers that could disrupt traditional patterns of control.

In the U.S., the issues that arise from immigration have become embedded in the basic discourse about the nation’s future.  Some concepts are widely accepted, while others are seriously challenged.

Americans generally understand that their country is a nation of immigrants.  Waves of people from foreign countries have flowed into the U.S. throughout virtually all its existence.  Each group has faced resistance and even discrimination in the decades after their arrival.  African Americans, who did not migrate willingly, suffer exceptional indignity.

Immigration has been a major source of population growth.  More people has meant more workers able to operate the tools of virtually all aspects of the nation’s stunning economic growth.  Their growing personal prosperity has created a burgeoning consumer economy.  American economic greatness has depended on immigration.

Moving beyond the sentiment that the national territory was large enough to accommodate millions more, the U.S. adopted an immigration policy.   While new arrivals should continue to be welcomed, the country could reasonably meter the flow to ensure stability.

Trump has been intent on expelling as many unauthorized residents as possible.  It proved relatively easy to identify long-term, law-abiding illegal entrants and attempt to expel them to make his numbers look good.

The public concern about immigration did not focus on such people but rather on recent and lawbreaking immigrants.  While reassured about border security, the public was not enthusiastic about the removal of contributing community members or separating parents from children, who might be citizens.  Nor was ICE’s denial of their due process rights.

Trump wants to reverse the citizenship of immigrant children born in the U.S. by a new interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment.  He blocks the entry of people from some countries.  He wants green card applicants to leave the country and reapply from their home countries.

He has recently indicated that he would like to roll back legal immigration.  The number of legal immigrants and refugees was virtually identical in 2024 to what it was in 2015.  There is no rising tide to be blocked unless race is the issue.

Immigration is vital to the economy.  In 2023, immigrants contributed $2.6 trillion, about 13 percent of Gross Domestic Product.  They paid $492 billion in taxes.  After the slowdown in immigration, American economic growth may slow.

Trump’s total anti-immigrant policy, reaching productive residents, will reduce the size of the U.S. population and of the American economy.  The Democrats offer no alternative.  This is where bipartisan leadership must begin.

 

MAGA melts; promises can't be kept

 

Gordon L. Weil

MAGA may be failing when it comes to some of President Trump’s key policies.

Like many candidates for executive office, he made promises with broad political appeal, but which ignored and encountered harsh reality – from political to economic to legal – that made keeping them impossible.

After making bold and popular promises, Trump last week backtracked on commitments relating to tariffs, immigration and military action. 

With global free trade becoming increasingly unworkable, Trump imposed a new system depending on a multitude of bilateral arrangements.  He levied across-the-board tariffs on almost all countries.  He acted swiftly in the belief that other countries would flock to make trade concessions so that he would lower tariffs aimed at them.

Economists warned that the tariff burden would fall mainly on American consumers as their cost was passed on by importers.  He denied that tariffs caused inflation and even denied that prices were rising.   Unhappy consumers saw prices on groceries increase, whatever he might claim.

No obvious effort was made to equate the dollar value of trade concessions made by others with the cost imposed by new tariffs.  Instead, Trump lowered tariffs in return for promises of massive new investment in the U.S., though it is doubtful that tracking foreign investment commitments is possible.  In the short-term, domestic manufacturing benefitted little from tariff protection.

Finally, Trump came to realize that his tariffs were driving up prices for individual consumers.  Last week, he ordered tariffs lifted on foods for which U.S. production was insufficient to meet demand, pushing prices up.  More tariff cuts on non-food items are said to be coming.

“Wait. If lowering tariffs lowers prices, what does raising tariffs do to prices?” Erica York, a vice president at the Tax Foundation, asked.  It may be called a matter of “affordability,” but that’s really inflation.

In the end, some relatively low tariffs may survive, but the policy itself is in trouble.  Even more troublesome is the possibility that the Supreme Court, usually supportive of his expanded use of power, could overturn many of his tariffs because they are illegal or even unconstitutional.  Such a decision could lead to undermining his assertion of unlimited power.

He floated the idea of returning some of the tariff revenue to American taxpayers.  This may have been an attempt to encourage the Court not to see tariffs as taxes.  It probably won’t work, leaving him in violation of his MAGA promise to not raise taxes.

On immigration, Trump promised what amounted to the complete elimination from the U.S. of undocumented or illegal immigrants, starting with the most criminal.  Dating from his first presidential campaign, that promise was the MAGA cornerstone.

He made clear he was trying to deport as many as possible, even if they were not criminals.  In fact, law-abiding, productive residents were the easiest to target, which concerned some people who had supported his policy.  He even reduced legal immigration. 

His anti-immigration policy had been the binding force among his supporters.  Last week, that changed. 

Trump said that the U.S. lacks people with “certain talents,’ who should be admitted so they can train Americans.  Some loyal Trumpers disagreed with that and with his willingness to admit 600,000 Chinese students.  Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the ultimate Trump backer, dissented, so Trump called her “wacky” and ceased supporting her.

When asked if his policy would displease MAGA backers, he asserted that he alone had invented MAGA.   That statement implied they must follow his lead.  However, because he had adopted policies espoused originally by others, that leadership is now in question.

He recognized that the U.S. cannot go it alone, especially in technical areas.  He may come to realize that the economic growth he wants depends on a growing population resulting from legal immigration.   Because of issues related to the immigrants’ ethnicity, he may encounter even more MAGA opposition.

After his first term, Trump prided himself on having kept the U.S. out of armed conflict.  That struck a contrast with the Democrats, pleasing his backers.  The bombing run he ordered on Iran began to raise doubts, though he excused it by noting that no American lives were lost.

Last week, he strayed even further from his commitment.  He stationed a huge American aircraft carrier, the world’s largest warship, in the Caribbean Sea as an obvious threat to Venezuela.  It might have been better placed in the South China Sea to face down Chinese marine aggression than to confront a relatively minor portion of the drug trade.

Trump risked restoring America’s role as the “world’s policeman,” a policy completely contrary both to his claim to being a peacemaker and his policy of keeping the U.S. out of foreign conflicts.  America First now seems to allow for the use of American military power abroad.

MAGA is melting.