By CHRIS POWELL
Whether the fatal shootings of Rene Good and Alex Pretti by immigration agents in Minneapolis were justified or excusable can be determined only by independent investigation, which, unfortunately, the Trump administration seems unlikely to permit.
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-But there is no doubt about one thing: Good and Pretti were enthusiastic members of groups that have been searching their city for immigration enforcement actions they could obstruct by confronting agents, blowing whistles, making noise, and otherwise alerting illegal immigrants to scram. To carry a loaded pistol in search of such confrontation, as Pretti did, is to ask for trouble, as he asked for trouble a week earlier at another immigration enforcement action site, spitting at agents and kicking their car. Good asked for trouble by using her car to block the street where an immigration action was underway.
Of course this doesn’t mean shooting them was justified. But since impeding immigration law enforcement is a federal felony, arresting them would have been justified.
There is much for the government to learn from here.
It may be better to start an enforcement action by arresting and prosecuting those who show up to obstruct it — not the mere observers and videographers but the people who get in the way or seek to warn the action’s targets.
The Trump administration should realize that masking immigration agents and failing to require them to wear name tags, numbered badges, and body cameras as ordinary police officers do is unAmerican and condemns them to being likened to the Gestapo — and condemns the president himself to be likened to You-Know-Who. With his tough guy persona, the president may enjoy this but it may cost his party control of Congress in November.
It also may be better to reorient immigration enforcement away from raids entirely, apart from apprehending the most violent criminal illegals. Such reorientation might be done easily and be more effective. It would make living in the United States as an illegal immigrant almost impossible.
That is, federal law could require all employers to use the federal government’s internet-based “e-Verify” system of confirming a job applicant’s legal standing to live and work in the United States.
Employers who hire illegal immigrants, knowingly or not, could be prosecuted, fined, and imprisoned. Federal law could require employers to get and maintain proof of citizenship or legal residency from all job applicants.
Federal law could forbid states from issuing identification documents, including driver’s licenses, to anyone who has not proven citizenship or legal residency. Connecticut and other “sanctuary states” long have been facilitating illegal immigration by issuing such documents to illegals.
Federal law could forbid any government services or welfare benefits for illegal immigrants, including education, except for emergency medical care at hospitals. We’re not going to let people die in the street but we can’t afford to provide medical care to all the world’s poor. Like other “sanctuary states,” Connecticut lures illegal immigrants with free education, social services, and, in some cases, medical care.
And federal law could require requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration. Connecticut requires proof of legal age for those who would buy a beer but for voter registration accepts mere affirmation of citizenship, which the state never checks. Somehow merely affirming one’s age isn’t good enough to get a drink.
The president and congressional Republicans should offer congressional Democrats such an immigration law enforcement reform package, addressing the compelling concerns of civil liberty and government accountability.
Of course the Democrats, including all members of Connecticut’s congressional delegation, will reject any effective enforcement. But their rejection will expose their true objective.
It will show that Democrats remain the party that opened the country’s borders and wants lots more illegal immigration, mass amnesty, and the congressional and state legislative district gerrymandering that will result from millions of non-citizens being counted at the next census, gerrymandering that is being euphemized by Connecticut U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and many other Democrats as a “path to citizenship.”
It’s really the path to one-party rule forever.
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Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
Chris Powell column 