This may strike the literal-minded as illogical, however I believe Huntington Park Mayor Arturo Flores, a Marine veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, had a righteous level when he declared at a information convention with Southern California mayors that immigrants being rounded up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in communities like his “are Individuals, whether or not they have a doc or they don’t.”
“The president retains speaking a couple of overseas invasion,” Flores instructed me Thursday. “He retains making an attempt to color us as the opposite. I say, ‘No, you might be coping with Individuals.’”
California’s estimated 1.8 million undocumented immigrants who’ve lived amongst us for years, for many years, who work and pay taxes right here, who’ve despatched their American-born youngsters to colleges right here, have all of the duties of residents minus lots of the rights. Sure, technically, they’ve damaged the legislation. (For that matter, so has President Trump, a felon, and he continues to violate the Structure day after day, as his mounting court docket losses attest.)
However our area’s undocumented Mexican and Central American immigrants are inextricably embedded in our lives. They take care of our youngsters, construct our properties, dig our ditches, trim our timber, clear our properties, lodges and companies, wash our dishes, choose our crops, sew our garments. Tons personal small companies, are paying mortgages, attend universities, rise of their professions. In 2013, I wrote about Sergio Garcia, the primary undocumented immigrant admitted to the California Bar. Since then, he has change into a U.S. citizen and owns a private damage legislation agency.
These Californians are far much less more likely to break the legislation than native-born Individuals, and they don’t deserve the reign of terror being inflicted on them by the Trump administration, Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem and Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has pointlessly however theatrically referred to as within the Marines.
“So we began off by listening to the administration needed to go after violent felons gang members, drug sellers,” stated Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who organized the mayors’ information convention final week, “however once you raid Residence Depot and workplaces, once you tear mother and father and kids aside, and once you run armored caravans by our streets, you’re not making an attempt to maintain anybody secure. You’re making an attempt to trigger worry and panic.”
And please, let’s not overlook that when Congress got here collectively and hammered out a bipartisan immigration reform invoice beneath President Biden, Trump demanded Republicans kill it as a result of he didn’t need a rational coverage, he needed to have the ability to preserve hammering Democrats on the problem.
However it appears there’s extra happening right here than rounding up undocumented immigrants and terrorizing their households. We appear to have entered the “punish California” section of Trump 2.0.
“Trump has a hyperfocus on California, on methods to harm the financial system and trigger chaos, and he’s actually doubling down on that marketing campaign,” Flores instructed me. He has a degree.
“We’re staying right here to liberate the town from the socialist and the burdensome management that this governor and this mayor positioned on this nation,” Noem instructed reporters Thursday at a information convention within the Westwood federal constructing, throughout which California Sen. Alex Padilla was wrestled to the bottom and handcuffed face down for daring to ask her a query. “We’re not going away.”
So now we’re speaking about regime change? (As former Harvard legislation professor Laurence Tribe put it on Bluesky, using army power aimed toward displacing democratically elected leaders “is the very definition of a coup.”)
Noem’s noxious mixture of willful ignorance and inflammatory rhetoric is nearly too ludicrous to mock. It goes hand in hand with Trump’s foolish declaration that our metropolis has been set aflame by rioters, that with out the army patrolling our streets, Los Angeles “could be a criminal offense scene like we haven’t seen in years,” and that “paid insurrectionists” have fueled the anti-ICE protests.
What we’re seeing play out within the information and in our neighborhoods is the willful infliction of worry, trauma and intimidation designed to spark a violent response, and the warping of actuality to melt the bottom for additional Trump administration incursions into blue states, America’s bulwark towards his autocratic aspirations.
For weeks, Trump has been scheming to deprive California — in all probability illegally — of federal funding for public faculties and universities, citing resistance to his govt orders on variety, fairness and inclusion applications, on immigration, on environmental laws, and so forth.
And but, as a result of he’s maybe the world’s most ignorant head of state, he appears to have immediately realized that crippling the California financial system is perhaps unhealthy politics for him. On Thursday, he instructed in his personal jumbled method that maybe deporting hundreds of the state’s farm and hospitality employees may trigger ache to his associates, their employers. (Central Valley growers and agribusiness PACs, for instance, overwhelmingly supported Trump in 2024.)
“Our farmers are being harm badly by, you recognize, they’ve excellent employees. They’ve labored for them for 20 years,” Trump stated. “They’re not residents, however they’ve turned out to be, you recognize, nice. And we’re going to need to do one thing about that.”
Like loads of Californians, I really feel helpless within the face of this assault on immigrants.
I thought of a Guatemalan, a father of three younger American-born youngsters, who has a thriving enterprise hauling junk. I met him a few years in the past at my native Residence Depot, and have employed him a number of occasions to haul away family detritus. As soon as, after I couldn’t get the town to assist, he hauled off a small dune’s price of sand on the finish of my road that had change into the native canine’ pee pad.
I referred to as him this week — I’ve extra stuff that I must do away with, and I used to be fairly certain he may use the work. Early Friday morning, he arrived on time with two employees. He stated hadn’t been capable of work in two weeks however was hopeful he’d be capable of return to Residence Depot quickly.
“How are your youngsters doing?” I requested.
“They fear,” he stated. “They ask, ‘What’s going to we do if you happen to’re deported?’”
He tells them to not fret, that issues will quickly be again to regular. After he drove off, he texted: “Thanks a lot for serving to me at the moment. God bless you.”
No, God bless him. For working exhausting. For being an excellent dad. And for nonetheless believing, towards the percentages, within the American dream.
