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GELFAND’S WORLD - It is a battle of the euphemisms and a battle involving traditional practice vs. strict enforcement. Let's start with the traditional practice argument.
Whatever the law may actually say, there is an acceptance by local governments that the official rules on immigration are not to be enforced. If people are going to work and minding their own business, then -- by unofficial agreement and officially under the Sanctuary City policy -- the LAPD won't arrest people simply for being here without citizenship. The City Attorney won't get involved in such actions and our elected officials have learned to support the policy.
This of course is contrary to Donald Trump's stated views.
So let's consider the realities for a moment.
Whatever the federal statutes may say, the reality is that immigration does not seem to be harmful to us economically, nor (say the statistics) does the immigrant community commit more crimes than the non-immigrant community. The presence of a lot of underpaid immigrants may actually be improving the lives of the non-immigrants because of all the work that is contributed to local industries, services, and businesses, allowing for higher salaries for everyone else. This argument may not be truly robust, but it would certainly be hard to make the counterargument.
And then there is the battle of the euphemisms. Our elected leaders (and, to a considerable extent the news media) won't refer directly to people as being in this country illegally. They are Undocumented. Some of us will remember how comedian George Carlin made fun of such word usage, albeit with regard to other topics.
And there is one other bit of fallout from the weekend's events: The protests and reaction by Trump in sending in the National Guard have this effect: It will be a lot harder for ICE to carry out raids in any big city environment for the foreseeable future. Forget for one instant the damage to property and just count up the overtime run up by the police and sheriffs -- it's got to be in the millions of dollars. Allow this to go on a few more weeks, and the City of Los Angeles will be even more bankrupt. This would not ordinarily bother Donald Trump, but what is going on in Los Angeles will reverberate through every other part of the country that relies to some extent on immigrant labor. And that's nearly all of them.
Forgive me for saying this, but the weekend events in Los Angeles are kind of funny. At least they are giggle-producing when it comes to the TACO in Chief, Donald Trump, who has once again lost a battle. Even as this is being written, the state of California has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration regarding Trump's authority to call out the National Guard without first getting a request from the governor. There is a little bit of humor involved in a liberal state calling on the Tenth Amendment -- California is making a States' Rights argument! There is even more humor in the realization that local residents have called Trump's bluff and stood up to ICE -- the federal agents cannot even peaceably assemble without provoking a mass protest.
A precedent and practice is being developed, whereby ICE will be followed around by the news media, by protesters, and yes, by elected officials: There is a comprehensive discussion of how the protest developed in Paramount when a member of the state legislature noticed ICE assembling across the street from a Home Depot. You can read it here.
The ICE Raids and Their Aftermath
As Senator Alex Padilla and others have been pointing out, the Trump administration is caught in the position of trying to defend its unconscionable budget bill -- you know, the one that the Republicans are calling the "Big Beautiful Bill" -- but suddenly a few senators and the press have started to look at what it really says. And what they are finding is that the bill trades cuts in health insurance and science and so many other things for tax cuts on the most obscenely rich people in the country. And even then, the bill would, if enacted, result in a couple trillion dollars more in federal debt.
So -- as Sen. Padilla says -- Trump, as is his habit, is trying whatever he can to deflect attention from the budget debacle, and that is why we have the ICE raids in Los Angeles. Notice that we're not seeing anything comparable when it comes to meat packing plants in the Midwest or chicken packing plants in the South, or anything regarding southern agriculture. It's California that is in Trump's crosshairs.
Why California? There's at least a couple of reasons. One of them is that Republicans see Gavin Newsome as a potential presidential candidate, so -- according to their long-term practice with regard to Democratic Party opponents -- they have been smearing him and will continue to do so. The other is just that we are California and we like being California, and we don't mind saying so. We defend the separation of church and state, not to mention reproductive freedom, and we have weather. All of this makes us a target for every hypocritical opportunist in the right wing.
So Trump deflects from the budget debate by ramping up the ICE presence, assembling a large taskforce of ICE agents, and sending them to raid traditional gathering points for day laborers.
The Giggles
The effect of Trump's attack on los Angeles has been twofold. The direct result is the large demonstration near the federal detention center downtown. Saturday's was pretty large, but Sunday's was even larger. It certainly got a lot of attention.
But the indirect effect is the more telling: That day of ICE raids was kind of like elective surgery -- it wasn't necessary to do it on any particular day, and it could be put off almost indefinitely. But in the case of the ICE raids, the side effects (two days of mass demonstrations and a little bit of vandalism, rock throwing, and freeway closure) have put a pretty heavy cost on what the administration is trying to accomplish. To arrest and deport a few non-citizens, the city has been distracted, police and CHP overtime is through the roof, and Trump, as usual, is caught in his usual pattern of confusion and lies. In this case, he congratulated the National Guard for restoring order at a point where they had not as yet deployed.
One other point that is worth noting: Mayor Bass spoke to the news media on Sunday evening. Her comments were about as complete a statement for open borders as we have heard. Perhaps she was just trying to ground her remarks in the reality which is life here in the west. One might summarize her viewpoint as saying that half our population is ethnically Latino, they work and live peacefully, and everything Trump is trying to do to them is just a provocation.
The real result of the administration's raids is that the downtown federal detention center has been disabled in terms of getting in or out (it's surrounded by National Guard troops and, beyond them, the LAPD) and the message has been delivered to the Trump administration: If you try this again, you risk shutting down the city center once again, and you will continue to look like a joke.
Addendum
Former LAPD officer, City Councilman, and current CityWatch columnist Dennis Zine was a commenter on one of our local news stations over the weekend. He had some pointed remarks about how law enforcement should have handled the situation. It will be interesting to read his take on the weekend's events here in the CW.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
