Yes, enforce the law even at home-improvement stores.
Yes, enforce the law even at home-improvement stores.
T he left is opposed to immigration enforcement as such, but its biggest red line is Home Depot.
A trigger of the L.A. anti-ICE riots was a raid on one of the retailer’s home-improvement stores, followed up by a false rumor of another raid at a different Home Depot.
Apparently, the stores are to be considered little islands of lawlessness in every community where ICE can’t get within even a certain distance — like a gun-free school zone for illegal aliens.
The unrest in Paramount began on Saturday when rumors spread that ICE agents were heading to a Home Depot:
Typically, the store that is nestled along the Los Angeles River bed would be filled with weekend warriors tackling home improvements, workers collecting supplies and immigrants in search of work.
But that morning, border patrol agents were spotted across the street from the Home Depot, gathering around 9 a.m. Word quickly spread on social media. Passersby honked their horns. Soon, protesters arrived. Home Depot eventually closed.
As it happens, there was no raid at the Home Depot; instead, the agents were using a DHS facility adjacent to the store as a staging area for targeted action against illegal immigrants in L.A. who had been deported and had reentered, or had already been ordered removed.
On Friday, ICE agents did undertake enforcement actions at worksites, including a Home Depot.
“The Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation,” a Washington Post report noted, “was one of several Friday in Los Angeles that drew widespread criticism from elected leaders and community activists.” It continued, “As word spread, protesters hit the streets to confront the officers and denounce their actions as a broad attack against immigrant families.”
But what do they expect? Home Depots have become perhaps the foremost symbol of open, routine defiance of U.S. immigration laws, with illegal immigrants gathering en masse for everyone to see and getting hired by people who know they are breaking the law in doing so.
Of course an administration that wants to make a serious dent in the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. should target this practice.
Stephen Miller reportedly asked ICE officials at a meeting several weeks ago, “Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?” If so, these were good questions.
Targeting illegal immigrant criminals is important, but most illegal immigrants haven’t committed non-immigration-related crimes. They are here to work and will only be convinced to leave if we make it much harder to get illegal employment.
Now, day laborers shouldn’t be the most important focus of worksite enforcement, but instead, the employers who are breaking the law (indeed, ICE in L.A. targeted businesses hiring workers with “fictitious employee documents”).
The goal has to be to convince illegal immigrants to make the decision to go home on their own, or “self-deport.” This requires less time and fewer government resources than detention and removal proceedings and, for the immigrant, is a less disruptive process.
According to the Post report, illegal immigrants at the Home Depot that was raided are beginning to think in these terms. The paper talked to a day laborer who had alerted other illegal aliens of the presence of the ICE agents.
“‘I’m not sure it’s worth it anymore,’ said Abraham, the man who had shouted ‘La migra!’ to the other day laborers alongside Angel,” the report noted. “The Nicaraguan immigrant said he would continue working to support his young son but the constant threat of detention and deportation is weighing on him. ‘La vida aqui ya no sirve.’ Life here doesn’t work anymore.”
Convincing large numbers of illegal immigrants to come to this conclusion won’t be easy, and it means squeezing people who, their legal status aside, aren’t a threat to anyone. But one indicator that we are succeeding at enforcement and at reducing the number of illegal immigrants will be if the areas around Home Depots are no longer meccas of lawlessness.