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By Roland Hughes
I normally don’t pay a great deal of attention to politics, and I’m sure there are a few friends who are wondering if I’m okay. Yes, I’m fine. But these are strange times we’re living in, and I don’t have it in me to feel indifferent about what’s coming out of our leadership or how their decisions are affecting real human beings.
I don’t understand how we’ve arrived at a place where leadership increasingly feels less like guidance and more like force—where disagreement is treated not as something to engage, but something to strike down. Is that how a leader acts? I don’t personally care for the behavior of some of the people being targeted, but honestly—is that how we teach our children to face challenges?
And what exactly are we doing here? Are we really preparing to round up and deport every person who doesn’t have the right paperwork? For what reason—because they’re breaking the law? Over something comparable to a traffic ticket? I hear the officials leading this effort repeat, over and over, that these are violent criminals being removed by the thousands. But where is the evidence that they are violent? Is the absence of paperwork itself now proof of danger?
We’re being told a story that should concern anyone who has a family and cares about this country. It sounds frightening. But is it accurate?
I’ve worked in construction for over 25 years and have worked alongside people from all walks of life, including undocumented immigrants. I’ve been stolen from, assaulted, and had to defend myself — but never by an immigrant. I’ve been fed by them. I’ve been treated with genuine respect. I’ve never been harmed by them. I’m not saying it never happens. Of course it does. But we already have systems in place to deal with crime, and when those systems aren’t working as intended, whose responsibility is that? The people trying to escape someplace horrible for someplace better — or the institutions tasked with enforcing the law fairly and competently?
The narrative we’re being told doesn’t align with what we actually know. The federal government—including the FBI—does not maintain comprehensive national data tracking violent crime by immigration status in relation to population size. That data simply does not exist at a national level. Texas is the only large state that consistently publishes this information, and its findings don’t support what we’re being told. Undocumented immigrants commit less violent crime relative to their share of the population than native-born citizens.
Statistically, the people cheering this on are more likely to be harmed by a family member, or by law enforcement,than by an undocumented “stranger.”
At the same time, these same leaders are working hard to convince the public that most protests—particularly those in Minneapolis—are violent, and that people should simply comply and remain peaceful. I support peace. I encourage it. But we should also ask: what keeps turning peaceful protest into something else? Why are we increasingly seeing people standing on sidewalks beaten or pepper-sprayed? Why are tear gas canisters being launched into vehicles with children inside? Why are administrative warrants being used to bypass scrutiny while everyday people find their homes raided in the middle of the night?
This is becoming too common. And no peace will come from it.
Right or wrong, it is the responsibility of leadership to bring restraint—to end this before it becomes something that cannot be repaired. Before we lose something we all love, even if we see it differently. I can’t find a moment in history where a government wielded this level of force against its own people and nothing good ever came from it.
So if you support this, what are you really supporting?
And what do you believe you’ll gain that you don’t already have?