The anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles couldn’t have come at a greater time for progressive pols ramping up election campaigns.
As protests and riots rocked LA over ICE raids in his state, Gov. Gavin Newsom weighed in with a proper tackle:
“Trump and his loyalists, they thrive on division as a result of it permits them to take extra energy and exert much more management. And by the best way, Trump, he’s not against lawlessness and violence so long as it serves him. What extra proof do we’d like than January sixth,” Newsom mentioned.
Former George W. Bush adviser Scott Jennings informed CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, “It’s superb to me, initially, this man’s the governor of a state and … it’s bought certainly one of its most necessary cities burning, on his watch, and he’s out right here launching a presidential marketing campaign.”
However what higher method to distract from the truth that that is occurring on his watch? Or to make headway within the scrum for a possible 2028 Democratic presidential nomination?
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu additionally sees alternative rise from the ashes of burning automobiles. She doubled down on slamming ICE brokers as “secret police” to signing an govt order that seeks to place stress on the Trump administration over ICE arrests.
She mentioned town shall be urgent for better transparency by “usually” submitting requests for public information with the Division of Homeland Safety via the Freedom of Data Act, “in response to the key police ways which have been deployed throughout the nation in immigration enforcement.”
Right here’s the factor: the manager order just isn’t essentially enforceable, and town can’t compel the federal authorities to behave on its calls for for extra info on native immigration enforcement exercise. Wu acknowledged this.
So what’s the purpose?
For one, hyperbole makes for nice political theater, and that’s all the time welcome when keeping off challengers on your job. It’s additionally a distraction from criticism concerning the prices of White Stadium’s overhaul, bike lanes, and resurgence of drug use on Mass and Cass.
It additionally attracts consideration from the Metropolis Corridor cleaning soap opera centered round a home dispute between two staffers, and allegations by one who claimed she was fired to guard a high Wu aide who had propositioned her, in an effort to keep away from an election 12 months scandal for the mayor.
To be truthful, the heavy-handed ways of ICE brokers throughout these arrests of unlawful immigrants can be a distraction, and a nasty one. Public relations chief Rick Pozniak lately wrote in these pages that “these actions undermine the general public belief of ICE and within the courtroom of public opinion, as soon as a legislation enforcement company loses this belief, they’re in a picture and fame disaster.”
That reputational disaster is permitting rioters to spin the narrative that that is all about immigration, not unlawful immigration, and to say that there’s no distinction. And like moths to a flame, that pulls the protesting class to hitch the fray with cries of “fascists” and “Nazis” and the standard Trump-hate spiel.
America is the land of immigrants, individuals who got here right here legally, labored arduous and helped make the nation higher by their contributions. That’s a far cry from those that breach our borders illegally and go on to commit crimes.
That our communities don’t want.
