Welcome to the police state

E.J. Montoni, in Arizona Republic:

So it turns out that Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos really IS the face of President Trump’s mass deportation efforts:

A working mother of two American children.

According to memos released today by the Trump administration the undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of a crime are a priority, but not THE priority.

One directive reads: “Department personnel have full authority to arrest or apprehend an alien whom an immigration officers has probable cause to believe is in violation of the immigration laws. They also have full authority to initiate removal proceedings against any alien who is subject to removal under any provision of the (Immigration and Nationality Act).”

The young people brought to the country as children who are part of President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA) may be safe. For now.

But their parents are fair game.

And just about everyone else.

The plan is to hire thousands of new enforcement officers.

And to build new detention centers.

The law allows us to do this. It is up to us, to those we elect, to differentiate between what we CAN do and what we SHOULD do.

The administration could have chosen a humane path, one that would not have transformed a mother like Garcia de Rays into a modern-day Rosa Parks. 

Instead, they chose mass deportation.

They chose goon squads and gulags.

Welcome to the police state.