Bruce and Susan Robson are residents of Salisbury, Maryland.
Public safety improved. Violent, dangerous criminals off the streets. Who would be against that? Not us.
In a Jan. 23 press conference, Wicomico County (Maryland) Executive Julie Giordano stated that public safety is the reason for executing a 287(g) agreement. Sheriff Mike Lewis concurred, adding that avoiding the Minnesota scenario is part of their reasoning. Detaining dangerous criminals at the detention center rather than releasing them, when required, keeps them out of society and keeps U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from entering neighborhoods to apprehend them, using the tactics we’ve seen and that many abhor. Sheriff Lewis apparently recognizes the downside of ICE tactics.
But are these tactics being underemphasized? There’s a fear (terror?) among many Wicomico County citizens — native-born and naturalized legal immigrants. Executive Giordano and Sheriff Lewis are aware of this fear — expressed by speaker after speaker at public meetings and amplified by the smashing of car windows, the dragging of nonviolent passengers from cars and the stalking of citizens by masked, armed men.
Executive Giordano did not reference the brutalization of nonviolent offenders and legal U.S. citizens and residents. Sheriff Lewis spoke of not repeating Minnesota but declared that nothing can be done about federal law enforcement agency tactics.
Committing to public safety while not addressing U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s and ICE’s chaos-causing tactics feels naive, at best. The national initiative doesn’t look like public safety but an effort to violently intimidate certain groups of immigrants and citizens who disagree with the administration’s approach.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, when asked about Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem’s and the administration’s approach to border control and immigration, said: “She has taken this administration into the ground on an issue that we should all be on board with — border security and immigration. But they have destroyed that for Republicans. Something that got the president elected, they have destroyed it through their incompetence.”
This agreement may result in some violent criminals being rightly removed from our community — but at what cost? Sheriff Lewis has a lifetime body of work that has resulted in deep trust.
Help restore at least a bit of that trust by:
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
