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When Mike Johnson heard the House Speaker, I was driving listening to the news Sunday.
“We have to maintain the rule of law,” Johnson said.
I almost shook off the road.
Do you want to maintain the rule of law?
Steve Lopez
Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a columnist for the Los Angeles Times since 2001. He has won over 12 National Journalism Awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.
Trump forgives Hooligans for looting the Capitol after losing the 2020 presidential election. They clash with the police, destroy property, threaten the lives of civil servants, and to Trump, they are heroes.
Do you want to maintain the rule of law?
Trump is a 34 count felony, violating judicial rulings, ignoring laws that do not serve his interests, turning his current presidency into an unprecedented adventure of self-dealing and transplantation.
And now he is sending invasion forces to Los Angeles, causing a crisis where there was nothing. It’s one thing to arrest an undocumented immigrant on criminal records, but what is it? Or about holding shows, occupying commercial and residential neighborhoods, looking for work, or arresting along the way.
Protesters and National Guard members were looking at each other in front of a federal building in Los Angeles on Monday.
(Luke Johnson/Los Angeles Times)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegses warned that US Marines are high and ready to roll.
Next, the Air Force?
I have no intention of defending vandalism and violence in Trump’s hands following the ice arrest in Los Angeles. You can see him sitting in front of the tube and cheering every time another “immigrant criminal” throws rocks or scooters at him in his police car.
But I’m going to stick to Los Angeles and how work works here.
First of all, undocumented immigration is not a threat to public safety or the economy Trump is trying to blow away.
He’s just knowing he can score points with border fire and DEI (diversity, fairness, inclusion), so he’s become a complete gas bag with both, and now he’s threatening to lock Gov. Gavin Newsom.
To hear the rhetoric, you think that all other undocumented immigrants are gang members and that trans athletes will soon dominate youth sports if someone doesn’t stand up to them.
I can already read emails that have not arrived, so I’ll say in advance that breaking immigration law means breaking the law. I believe President Biden didn’t do enough to control the border, but it was Republicans who killed the Border Protection Bill earlier last year.
They also acknowledge that the costs of supporting undocumented immigrants are substantial in California when they are receiving healthcare that earns billions of dollars above the original estimate, taking into account public education.
However, the economic contributions of immigrants are undoubtedly numerous, regardless of their legal status, affecting the prices they pay for anything, from food to healthcare, domestic services, construction and landscaping.
Protesters closed 101 highways in Los Angeles on Sunday.
(Jason Armand/Los Angeles Times)
Last year, the Congressional Budget Office lifted the US economy by surges in immigration since 2021 (including refugees, asylum seekers, and other legal and illegal people “filling up jobs that otherwise would be vacant” and “put millions of state, local and federal co-ops.”
According to a creative 2011 study by the California Institute of Public Policy, “Many illegal immigrants pay Social Security and other taxes, but do not collect benefits and are not eligible for many government services.”
Furthermore, the report states: “Political debate aside, when illegal immigrants come, many US employers are ready to hire them. The majority of jobs. Estimates suggest that at least 75% of adult illegal immigrants fall into the workforce.”
Trump can oppose the crazy militants who have left for the tragedy of illegal immigration, but the statement that “employers are ready to hire them” is no longer true. And those employers stand on both sides of the political aisle, just like lawmakers who have for decades allowed a stable flow of workers to an industry that suffers without them.
On Sunday, I had to pick up some items at Home Depot on San Fernando Road in Glendale. But given the recent headlines, there were only a few men out there.
Garden shoppers say reports of federal forces marching in Los Angeles are “a bit ridiculous, aren’t they?” he said Trump’s characterization of “all these horrible people” and “gang members” is difficult to square with the reality of workers on a day they begged for work.
One of them was in the far corner of Home Depot, behind the fence. He is from Honduras and feared that he would risk his arrests by searching for work while a masked battalion was on the move, but he has a family home-returning, including three children. He said it could be used for all kinds of jobs, such as painting, hauling, and cleaning up.
The two men in the pickup truck told me they weren’t documented either and could be used for any type of construction work. They said they were from Puebla, Mexico, but there wasn’t enough work there.
I have been to Puebla, a city known for around 300 churches. I had been passing by on my way to a nearby small town about 20 years ago.
Where was the man?
Protesters closed 101 highways in Los Angeles on Sunday.
(Jason Armand/Los Angeles Times)
City workers will repair broken windows at LAPD headquarters on Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles on Monday.
(Robert Gautier/Los Angeles Times)
I was told by city officials that the local economy was all about corn, but local growers couldn’t compete with American farmers who benefited from federal subsidies. So the man went north for work.
Another reason people are heading north is to escape the violence that cartels armed with American-made weapons have been born, competing to provide America’s enormous appetite for drugs.
These methods can complicate the flow of people across borders. But generally speaking, it’s simply about survival. People move to escape poverty and danger. They move in search of something better for themselves, or to be more accurate about it for their children.
The stories of those journeys are woven into Los Angeles fabrics. It’s part of the messy, wonderful and complicated thing about this mixed, imperfect world.
That’s why this overheated invasion feels so ugly and very personal.
We don’t doubt much of our neighbors and the people we meet in our daily rounds than hypocrites who relent and send occupying forces to drive away members of our community.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
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