Eventually, after two dozen viewings, you whittled down the questions created by the Minneapolis video of an ICE agent killing 37-year-old Renee Good, to a single query.<\/p>\n
Not: Was this a murder in cold blood, or was it a federal agent acting in self-defense? Not: Could the ICE agent have stepped out of the way? Not: Had Good, an American citizen, a widow, and a mother, turned the steering wheel hard enough to avoid the agent with her SUV?<\/p>\n
Those questions are all valid and gut-wrenching, but they\u2019re for the investigators to answer.<\/p>\n
Your question hits much closer to home \u2014 our home, the Valley. Your question: How long until this happens here? Your answer: Likely very soon indeed.<\/p>\n
What happened on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis continues to cleave the nation as I write this, less than 24 hours after the incident. But no sooner did I view the video than my mind returned to a story I\u2019d read a few days before, hosted on The Bulwark website and written by Adrian Carrasquillo, who pens an immigration newsletter entitled \u201cHuddled Masses.\u201d<\/p>\n
The headline? \u201cScoop: ICE Plans to Descend on Phoenix.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s an excerpt from Carrasquillo\u2019s tale: \u201cAnd as three former DHS officials in contact with their former colleagues at the agency each described to me, the expectation among current officials is that one Democratic-led city in particular is about to become the next focus of arrests, detentions and deportations: Phoenix.<\/p>\n
\u201cA more robust DHS presence in the Phoenix metropolitan area would mark a new phase in the Trump operations \u2014 not just because it would take place in one of the country\u2019s most significant swing states (and a border one, at that), but because it would likely involve a greater expenditure of federal resources than prior operations in other cities have required.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carrasquillo reports that Phoenix is about to become \u201ca hub of removal\u201d in the Southwest, with soft-sided deportation facilities like Florida\u2019s \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d and, in response, the virtual certainty of furious counter-protests filling the streets.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe timeline of increased operations in the Phoenix area is unclear,\u201d Carrasquillo writes.<\/p>\n
He goes on to speculate about how this might play in Arizona, sure to be a swing state in every election from November to eternity.<\/p>\n
Having lived here for 30 years, I\u2019ll tell you exactly how it will play. The MAGA Trump acolytes in red hats, who represent a fraction of Arizona Republicans, will rejoice. On the left, activists from groups like LUCHA AZ (Living United for Change in Arizona) will congregate and condemn.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, many of the rest of us, myself included, will hope to God that our cities don\u2019t burn and that another mother doesn\u2019t take another lethal bullet to the face.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not saying this isn\u2019t my fight. I believe every one of us who calls this country home has a stake in how we treat immigrants who have violated our laws to come here.<\/p>\n
My preference would be to let the justice system distinguish the dreamers from the evildoers, and to expel the latter without demonizing the former.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not saying you\u2019re wrong to believe what you believe when it comes to illegal immigration \u2014 though I\u2019m sick past nausea of hearing alleged God-fearing folk suggest violence against immigrants that flies in the face of what Jesus would have done.<\/p>\n
What I\u2019m saying is this: The scenario we may well be about to live in the Valley will surely not end well.<\/p>\n
Which leaves me feeling like I\u2019m watching the video of Renee Good\u2019s death over and over, at normal speed and in slow motion, each time hoping for a different ending, but knowing exactly how it will end.<\/p>\n
With a gunshot. Blood. And death.<\/p>\n
Mark my words.<\/p>\n
David Leibowitz<\/p>\n