Tony Chiado

As a teacher, I’m a mandatory reporter. If I have a student facing abuse from a parent at home, I have both a moral and legal obligation to report that in the best interest of the student. Imagine if I said to myself instead, “Well I don’t know if that’s the best way of handling discipline at home, but something has to be done about the behavior of our youth these days. That’s more important to me than my student’s safety.”

Across America, this is the position of millions in response to law enforcement of immigration, property crime, and homelessness. More appallingly, others openly relish in the violence against these communities. But I focus on the former group, because they have wiped their hands of any guilt by saying, “it has to be done, no matter the humanitarian cost. No matter the cost to civil liberties.” They tell themselves that there’s a better way of doing this, and then imagine their ideal scenario while ignoring the present reality.

How can so many support the shackling of elementary-aged children for the purpose of deportation? They imagine that it is, somehow, a step toward what they perceive to be a more honest practice of immigration enforcement. The kind that will keep people from entering the country without papers and only remove those who commit violent crimes. But there is no evidence of that. We’ve seen instead a ratcheting up of abuse toward scapegoated minorities in this country. In my hypothetical at the beginning of this post, there is no evidence that the abusive parent will eventually shed their inhumane practices for the warmth of hugs and a soft voice. And I can’t afford to wait for them to do that anyway. There is very real harm happening in the moment that must be addressed.

Every person today who says that this must be done for the good of the nation is an enabler of an abusive regime. As citizens, we all have the responsibility to be mandatory reporters against our government, to hold our government accountable, and to remember that we must consent to be governed. And I know, from personal conversations and national polling data, that there is a meaningful chunk of people on the right who believe there is a better way to go about immigration enforcement. Their abdication of this responsibility, since they are of a political mindset to acknowledge that it is happening, is an indifference that rejects to stand up for those suffering. It’s ugly stuff to be indifferent to the abused. It is not an upright moral position. Historically, it has passively tolerated genocides and the rise of authoritarianism across history.