The Promise, the Problems, Reasonable Solutions

The Promise: 

Purportedly to rid our streets of the ‘worst of the worst’, 'very bad people' illegal people in our country.

The Problem(s):

1.) A vast number of people being arrested and detained are those who are ACTING WITHIN LAWFUL COMPLIANCE with the rules and regulations pertaining to their status. These are people who are lawfully turning up to immigration hearings; furthermore they are paying taxes and oftentimes earning below minimum wage.

2.) Persons turning up to scheduled and mandated ICE hearings are otherwise working to safeguard the local economy, performing tasks unattended and unwanted by legal residents: they prevent the farmers from losing unharvested crops lay waste in fields, and prevent loss of revenue to the state franchise board.

3.) When people can not trust legal due process they begin to believe they are powerless to operate within the parameters of the law; this aggravates tensions between local law enforcement agencies who begin to believe they are under siege.  Law enforcement then begins to operate in disregard of SOPs themselves becoming lawless.  The SOPs for use of less deadly force like rubber bullets are that the shots are fired on the ground in front of advancing crowds.  Under NO circumstances are they to be fired at people because then they stand a real risk of being lethal force (even in the military when training with blanks there was always a mussel guard affixed to the end of the barrel to avoid injuring, maiming, or killing persons with fragments from the blank).  

4.) A law enforcement officer may be subject to charges of ATTEMPTED MURDER for aiming at and discharging rubber bullets at civilians.  (The fact that the foreign reporter who suffered a rubber bullet being embedded in their is alive is a very lucky outcome; had the bullet hit his femoral artery he could have well bled out and died before receiving life saving care.)

5.) HIDING ONE’S BADGE NUMBER as a law enforcement official suggests an intentional evading detection. If one is operating within the bounds of legal conduct one should have no need to hide one’s badge number. Identifiable law enforcement personal is essential for conveying to the public an assurance that such persons are acting within the confines and parameters of their lawful duties. All LAPD should be proud to identify themselves as those hired to protect and serve the residents of the City and County of Los Angeles.

6.) ARREST & DETENTION QUOTAS: this is a terrible practice.  It compels ICE officers to go after the most visible compliant non citizens not the “worst of the worst”. The legality and constitutionality of this practice is dubious at best, particularly because the detainees are then regularly shuffled between undisclosed ICE locations, in effect ‘disappearing’ them (similar to how citizens have been disappeared under dictatorial regimes throughout the world, but never before in the US).

REASONABLE SOLUTIONS:

1.) If ICE under the direction of DHS is indeed operating legally they should be comfortable posting at minimum the last names, gender and age of detainees on a daily basis: there is no need of secrecy particularly for those turning up lawfully to ICE hearings, and there is no need to secretively move them around so that their families can’t reach them or provide them legal representation; such behavior is too indicative of state sponsored illegalities and practices verging on dictatorial tyranny.

2.) Those compliantly going to hearings should make sure their family and friends know of their (i) hearing times, (ii)when they are leaving to go to the hearing, and (iii) when they arrive, and (iv) when they leave.  They should makes sure their family and friends are able to track their mobile devices so that a last known location can be identified in case they go missing (in general anyone who may be at risk of getting caught up in overzealous ICE sweeps because of their apparent ethnic heritage, should make sure that their family and loved ones are able to track them at all times).

3.) Any entrusted law enforcement officer engaging in violent and excessive force against unarmed and passive persons must be held accountable to the full extent of the law.  Public support of law enforcement officers is contingent upon the public’s trust that officers are carrying out their duties and responsibilities in a lawful manner. A mutual trust and positive regard is essential for the safety of all citizens and non-citizens alike; for the safety of those who serve and those whom they serve(we lost a tremendous source of liaison between civilians and the law enforcement community when we lost the beat COP.)

4.) Lastly: Remain curious about who benefits through our divisions: as a Marine I swore to protect from enemies foreign and domestic. It is bothersome that the weight of people's argument rest solely on their party affiliation and not the guiding principles of Justice and Equity. The problem with the wealth gap has been articulated throughout human history, cross-culturally and across many spiritual traditions, "that the rich should not have so much that the poor go without", because retaining wealth depends a socioeconomically stable society, where there is inequitable suffering a society risks degrading the threads which hold the fabric of the society together.