ICE may go too far
Militarized federal encroachments on public life provoke strong, even violent responses — even among those who agree with their aims.
Trump and Stephen Miller set a goal of deporting 1 million undocumented immigrants each year —ICE will now become the largest law enforcement agency in the country.
Is this a major victory? Maybe not because there's reason to believe it could backfire.
Mass deportations on this scale require brute displays of force that may shock the public conscience, even among people who theoretically support the broader goals.
In Los Angeles the administration deployed guardsmen and active-duty military and ICE arrested over 1,600 persons, including workers at car washes and farms — even people making lawful appearances in immigration court.
The American public, which broadly approved of Trump’s tough stance on immigration during the 2024 election, is shifting the other way. A recent CNN poll shows 55 percent think Trump has gone too far in his pursuit of undocumented immigrants.
We’ve been here before — and there is a warning in it for the president.
Take for example the Fugitive Slave Act (FSA) of 1850.
The act inspired widespread disgust throughout the North. The law stripped accused runaways of their right to trial by jury and allowed individual cases to be bumped up from state courts to special federal courts. Most obnoxious to many Northerners, the law stipulated harsh fines and prison sentences for any citizen who refused to cooperate with or aid federal authorities in the capture of accused fugitives — much in the same way the Trump administration has threatened to jail persons who impede its immigration raids.
The parallels to today are fairly obvious.
Voters who, on paper, support the deportation of undocumented persons are beginning to see just what Trump’s dragnet looks like, in close and intimate terms. Some are recoiling at the idea that law-abiding people with legal or protected status, even citizens, might be detained by masked, unidentified agents and deported or swept away to brutal prisons in South America or Africa, without the benefit of a trial.
Many believe that, like the formerly enslaved who built new lives in free states, immigrants who have established themselves as productive and valued members of their communities, and who have otherwise abided by the laws where they live, have earned the right to a pathway to citizenship.
More ominous, still, is the potential for violent reaction. In a country as heavily armed as the United States, where many states allow gun owners to use lethal force when they believe their property or lives to be at stake. The protests that rocked Los Angeles this year, while largely disciplined and peaceful, devolved into instances of violence as police clashed with protesters, some of whom lit cars afire. As the administration’s raids intensify and spread, particularly to states like Texas, where gun ownership is more prevalent, the potential for violence will only increase.
History suggests the story will not be linear. It could radicalize the broader electorate and make the politics of the 2020s more violent, similar to the 1850s. That outcome would make Americans neither more safe nor more free.
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