Minnesota and My Neighbors

 After a week of keeping up with a seven month old my back is a bit of a mess. Perfect timing right? There’s snow and sleet piling up outside, meanwhile I’m sitting here in my recliner with the heading pad set to STUN when I hear an odd scraping sound coming from outside. I get up and walk over to the window about the time that Lucy begins an all-dog alert by barking like a maniac. I look out and there they all are. My neighbors, Stu and Jamie, along with their kids shoveling my sidewalk and driveway.

I’ve spent much of this morning catching up on the news, which seems to be dominated by killings in Minnesota, the current epicenter of turmoil surrounding the roundup of illegal immigrants by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. It seems to me that I’ve been writing about immigration ever since I started this blog 15 years ago. So, I actually searched the archives and sure enough I’ve written over twenty times in the space about this issue. Surprisingly, my views on this topic have been unusually consistent. I have found that over these fifteen years my thoughts on many hot-button issues have changed along the way, but on immigration they have remained steadfast and include the following:

I am very much PRO-LEGAL IMMIGRATION, and very much against illegal immigration.

I am not an open-borders guy. I believe it is reasonable for any country to control the integrity of its borders.

I have NEVER been in favor of any “solution” to the problem of illegal immigration that involves rounding up the 10-15 million people in the country here illegally and kicking them out. 

I have always been 100% in support of arresting and deporting people who have committed violent crimes while here illegally.

The President with the best record of deporting illegal immigrants was Barack Obama who averaged over 400,000 such deportations every year during his second term in office. He even awarded a medal to Thomas Homan, his ICE director at the time. Yep..that same guy that many now accuse of being the new Gestapo. Trump’s response to the unprecedented surge at out southern border under Biden has been to unleash a newly expanded ICE with new, seemingly unlimited powers that have in recent weeks resulted in the killing of United States citizens protesting their law enforcement operations. Regardless of the circumstances of each of these shootings, it is a disturbing and un-American look for law enforcement officers to be taking out their fellow citizens.

Here’s something I wrote in June of 2016:

What to do with the 10 million or so illegal immigrants already here? I have no idea actually. I wish there weren't 10 million illegal immigrants here. How they got here is a great shame to the rule of law and a black mark on the resumes of those who presume to lead us. But now they are here. The notion of rounding 10 million people up and herding them back to the border has a trail of tears quality to it that no decent human being wants to witness. They are human beings, not cattle. Any politician who says that this is what they want to do is an idiot and worse...a heartless idiot.

In other places I have written of various encounters I have had with immigrants over the years. In each case I was impressed even though I had no idea whether of not they were here illegally of not. After each such encounter I came away with the idea that we have to find a different way to speak about Immigration…a way that doesn’t make enemies of the “other.” Many of them are our neighbors. Probably the kind who would shovel your walk if your back was out. Being part of a community means taking care of your neighbors, looking out for them. If that what these protestors in Minnesota are doing, I understand completely. If they are instead protecting known criminals in their midst against deportations because they hate Trump, then that’s just misguided stupidity. 

Watching it all play out and the divided reaction to each killing that always falls neatly along party lines makes me think that we are watching our nation ripping itself apart. This is the exact opposite feeling to seeing your sweet neighbors caught red-handed in an act of kindness.