ICE Capades

“We can’t come this week,” read the text message I received from the maid who cleans our house every other week. “ICE is at the door.” While I tried to figure out whether she was being literal or speaking figuratively, I received another text.

“Mr. Tom, my guys won’t leave their houses. They are scared.” This message was from the yard service I’ve been using for more than nine years. It didn’t matter whether they were here legally or not.

But it does matter.

My Republican friends didn’t acknowledge and tried to minimize what ICE was doing. Some in my own family emphatically denied that ICE agents were wearing masks; that was just fake news, they said. Besides, ICE agents weren’t assaulting people who were here legally. Only criminals were being rounded up.

Television news footage showed a different story. I watched as a man was forced into a vehicle and his wallet, obviously out so that he could prove his identity, thrown onto the pavement. I saw footage of a woman in her car in Durham, while guys dressed in Camo smashed out her windows with assault weapons. And yes, their faces were covered by masks.

Nazi-like actions occurred in Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, and other cities in our state. One prominent Republican pundit, while saying he didn’t like masked agents and unmarked cars on our streets, quickly added that “immigration enforcement, including deportation, is necessary and actually moral.” Immigration enforcement or just plain thuggery?

There were protest rallies staged in Charlotte, Durham, Raleigh and other communities in response to the actions of ICE. In Charlotte, several hundred high school students walked out of their classrooms in protest, outraged at what was going on. Bravo for these young patriots.

Why weren’t there more protests and greater numbers attending them? Was it because people were afraid that if they joined and make noise about these violations of freedom and of basic moral integrity they would face similar ICE actions? What have we become!

It was the irony of ironies that these ICE raids were conducted at the same moment when Ken Burns’ wonderful series, The American Revolution, was being aired on PBS NC. At the very beginning, Burns took great care to explain that the colonies were populated by proud British Citizens, people loyal to their King, willing to abide by the laws and policies promulgated by Parliament. They were happy campers. That is until leaders of Parliament decided they would treat their subjects in America differently from English citizens.

First, they imposed taxes on colonists which other British citizens weren’t required to pay. When the colonists objected in ways they believed would get attention, since they had no representation in Parliament, the response in England was to use force. Granted throwing a shipload of tea into Boston harbor was pretty dramatic. When tensions began rising the government sent soldiers into Boston, required colonists to house them and violence erupted. And escalated.

 King George sent more soldiers, there was more violence and the inevitable occurred. The Revolutionary War might have been prevented if reasonable people on both sides had acted reasonably.

Actor Paul Giamatti often read quotes from John Adams, some so fitting for today that they need remembering. Said Adams, "There is So much Rascallity, so much Venality and Corruption, so much Avarice and Ambition, such a Rage for Profit and Commerce among all Ranks and Degrees of Men even in America, that I sometimes doubt whether there is public Virtue enough to support a Republic.”

By “public Virtue” Adams meant putting the common good before one’s own interests. The men and women who fought in that first civil war in our nation believed in the common good and there was a time in my lifetime when we believed in the common good. Sadly, this is not the case today.

Those patriots didn’t fight British oppression for us to have people afraid to leave their homes. We shouldn’t tolerate people crammed into cars with their wallets thrown on the streets. And we should be outraged when drivers have their car windows smashed with assault weapons.

Former Governor Cooper and current Governor Stein were right to have vetoed laws that allowed ICE to come into our law enforcement offices and conduct actions like we saw in Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham and other cities in our state.

Yes, we want our borders protected, and we know we can’t just throw open the doors to anyone who wants to come to our country, but we should all unite and raise our voices to oppose thugs with their faces covered, carrying rifles on our streets, especially when the crime rate is the lowest in many years.

Adams had a message for us when he said, “Posterity! You will never know, how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom.”

We don’t need ICE Capades like we recently saw!

Tom Campbell is a Hall of Fame North Carolina broadcaster and columnist who has covered North Carolina public policy issues since 1965.  Contact him at tomcamp@ncspin.com