Monday, February 27, 2017

Immigrants I Like And Those Other People

It's a little bit like abortion in that there's no non-horrific way (except in immigration's case maybe convictions of serious crimes, and even that can be pretty horrific to be honest) to have the government decide which are naughty and which are nice.

WEST FRANKFORT, Ill. — Ask residents of this coal-mining crossroads about President Trump’s decision to crack down on undocumented immigrants and most offer no protest. Mr. Trump, who easily won this mostly white southern Illinois county, is doing what he promised, they say. As Terry Chambers, a barber on Main Street, put it, the president simply wants “to get rid of the bad eggs.”

But then they took Carlos.

...

“I think people need to do things the right way, follow the rules and obey the laws, and I firmly believe in that,” said Lori Barron, the owner of Lori’s Hair A’Fairs, a beauty salon. “But in the case of Carlos, I think he may have done more for the people here than this place has ever given him. I think it’s absolutely terrible that he could be taken away.”


There's no way to write a "people like Carlos because I like him" clause into the law. There just isn't. Decide it's ok to aggressively transport longtime residents away, and you're going to be rounding up a lot of people who are "that nice immigrant I know" to somebody.