Immigration raids violating our nation's proud heritage

As long as federal immigration policy remains nothing more than fare for political debate in Washington, D.C., it may seem a matter of little consequence to people immersed in their daily routines in other parts of the country.

Even the occasional isolated raid or seizure — shocking as it may seem when targets are flown to prisons in Sudan or El Salvador in the middle of the night, without even the pretense of due process — typically fails to fully puncture the protective shield of not-in-my-backyard complacency.

But when heavily armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raid a packing plant in Omaha or a restaurant in Los Angeles — and haul scores of unsuspecting workers off to federal detention centers, leaving a trail of broken families in their wake — it becomes a watershed locally.

We experienced one of those moments here last week, when vineyard supply company owner Moises Sotelo-Casas was scooped up in Newberg, along with one of his employees, and spirited off to a federal detention center in Tacoma. His daughter learned of his fate not by getting official word from ICE, but by tracking his cell phone.

When Donald Trump descended a golden elevator to announce his first successful run for the presidency in 2015, he staked out immigration as a core issue, asserting, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us (sic). They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.”

Though descended from immigrants himself, he went on over the years to brand immigrants skirting the law to arrive here as animals and vermin, rapists and murderers, drug and gang kingpins — in short, “the worst of the worst.” He claimed caravans coming up from Mexico were threatening to invade America and overrun its borders.

Upon being returned to office in January, he set out to seal the border to further unlawful immigration and ramp up deportation of past violators to 1 million a year. He said he was willing to open new detention facilities here and abroad and deploy the U.S. military to assist if necessary.

He also moved to revoke birthright citizenship, invoke emergency powers, crack down on student visas, take action against Palestinian protesters, close refugee asylum for all but white South Africans, tap tax, health and social service databanks to expose immigration violators, pressure Mexico and Canada into assisting and take other actions through 181 immigration-specific executive orders his first 100 days. In addition to Mexicans, he has targeted Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.

According to the national Migration Policy Institute, “These actions have instilled fear in immigrant communities, especially around enforcement operations. Schools are reporting reduced attendance. Farmers and other employers say they worry their workers will be deported. International travel to the United State has decreased … And immigrant-rich neighborhoods are seeing a decline in foot traffic and commerce.”

That certainly seems to be the case locally, as Sotelo was a 30-year resident who had peacefully and lawfully gone about raising a family, launching a successful, highly respected business, and sinking deep church and community roots. A GoFundMe campaign launched on his behalf raised more than $116,500 in the first week, attesting to his standing.

ICE said he had once been convicted of driving under the influence in Newberg. However, the district attorney’s office has no record of such a case and none could be found in the state’s criminal justice database.

Besides, a one-time DUI would hardly qualify him for “worst of the worst” status as a hardened criminal. And according to their daughter, both he and his wife have begun a legalization process under rules established during the Biden administration.

One local winery posted a message terming him “truly one of the most humble, kind and generous individuals we’ve met in Newberg.” It went on to say, “He poses ZERO threat to public safety. His family is justifiably distraught and we share their distress.”

Another local winery posted, “He is deeply involved in his church, pays taxes, and is the central moral and financial support of his family, including wife, children and grandchildren.” It concluded, “Moises meets all with a smile on his face and generosity in his heart.”

Trump bases his crackdown largely around fear that immigrants will either engage in crime, violence and drug use or take jobs rightfully belonging to native-born Americans. But neither holds water in either the Sotelo case or the larger picture.

Statistics have consistently and convincingly shown two things: 1) Immigrants are no likelier to engage in criminal activity that anyone else; 2) Throughout our nation’s history, immigrants have largely moved, at least for the first generation, into jobs that few if any native-born citizens were willing to fill.

The former seems to have completely escaped Trump’s notice. However, the latter now appears to be catching his belated attention, due to growing backlash from food growing and processing interests and the hotel and restaurant industry — that and the attendant political considerations.

In fact, millions of workers are needed to tend, harvest and process fruit, vegetable and meat products for the American table. It’s hot, dirty, demanding work, and the American workforce is already at full employment.

Removing the immigrant element, or even a significant portion of it, is a recipe for economic disaster. And economic reverses tend to almost inevitably trigger political reverses.

In light of that, Trump is now suggesting ICE grant unofficial amnesty to farms, processing plants, hotels and restaurants and pursue its quota elsewhere.

He seems to be pointing ICE instead toward American’s largest and most highly industrialized urban centers, which conveniently happen to trend very strongly Democratic. But we think he’s going to find immigrants are filling equally critical manual jobs in urban settings.

The truth is, the labor of hard working and highly motivated immigrants, legal or not, has underpinned our economy throughout our history. A sudden cutback could thus carry serious consequences, especially in a nation experiencing a persistent, long-running decline in its birth rate.

According to a study by the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, Trump’s alma mater, it could easily cost the U.S. taxpayer $1 trillion dollars over the next 10 years to sustain the administration’s target level of enforcement through deportation.

And that, the study notes, doesn’t even begin to account for the damage from “reducing the labor supply by such drastic amounts over a short period of time.” It projects such shrinkage reducing the nation’s Gross Domestic Product by 4%, amounting to trillions more.

Putting aside all the implicit moral, ethical and humanitarian considerations, we see no reason our nation of immigrants should be pursuing such a wildly expensive mass expulsion policy. It doesn’t even make hard economic or political sense.

Here’s hoping those realities will persuade the administration to ease back on its wrenching immigration crackdown, which is becoming a growing stain on our national heritage.