More Misinformation from the Media:
Is this what immigration enforcement looks like? A dozen workers waiting on the side of the road to be hauled off to who-knows where, while police crack jokes at their expense?
Earlier this year, a Maine State Police trooper pulled over a van alongside Interstate 295. Suspecting the occupants were in the country illegally, the trooper called U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, then waited along with another trooper for ICE to arrive. In the end, the driver and one of the passengers were arrested, and it appears some of the other passengers were detained by federal agents. The stop took two hours . . . .
These were workers not criminals, presumably valued by their employer. They are thousands of miles from home, because this is where the opportunity is, and because the United States for decades has welcomed the contributions of undocumented workers but not provided them a reasonable path to citizenship. Now after a sudden shift in policy by a scapegoating president, their lives can change forever because of a traffic stop, whisked away by federal agents and given few rights. — Our View: Immigration Policy Takes a Turn for the Worse, The Editorial Board, Portland Press Herald (ME), 12/22/17 [Link]
Fact Check: If this is what immigration law enforcement is like, what’s wrong with it? Why should the editorialists of the Press Herald object to the laws of our country being enforced? Evidently they don’t believe that immigration laws are legitimate, as evidenced by their claim that the illegal aliens arrested were “not criminals.” It may be that they have violated civil rather than criminal statues, but they are still lawbreakers (and therefore criminals). The penalty for their crime is deportation.
The editorialists say that “we” welcomed “undocumented workers.” And just who is this “we?” Certainly it isn’t most Americans, particularly those who have had to compete with them for jobs. Who are they then? Prominent among them are businessmen seeking cheap labor, politicians seeking cheap votes, and journalists seeking to serve one or both of these selfish interest groups.
Even more outrageous is the claim that people who are in our country illegally are somehow entitled to “a reasonable path to citizenship.” If the Press Herald editorialists believe that citizenship should be a reward for lawbreaking, they have a very low view of the significance and meaning of our citizenship.
It would be nice if these editorialists, and many other apologists for illegal immigration, could be more honest about what they believe. As they apparently believe that our immigration laws and citizenship are unimportant, it is reasonable to conclude they don’t think our country is very significant either—that it is just a territory without any form or character where anyone can come and go for any reason. They won’t make a statement so blunt because they know it would spark outrage from genuine Americans.