The laws are old. The lawlessness of ICE is new. | Letter

In his July 24 op-ed concerning the investigation of the Biddeford ICE killing, Rep. Donald Ardell urged patience until all the facts were known (“Assess ICE instead of trading blame”).

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is President Trump’s weapon of choice in his anti-immigrant agenda. It benefits him politically to delay any potentially damaging report. At a minimum, the Department of Homeland Security should take a page from the armed forces approach to serious problems. It should stand ICE down until the deficiencies that have led to this series of catastrophes have been addressed. Patience in the face of ongoing carnage is no virtue.

Ardell suggests that ICE is just enforcing decades-old federal law — nothing to see here, folks, move along!

The law likely referred to has not been changed substantially in 40 years. What has changed is Trump’s zealous escalation in enforcement, applying the law to immigrants previously allowed to live, work and raise families in their communities. And Trump has raised an undertrained and undersupervised army of agents to deliver his daily quota of deportations. Ardell hides ICE’s function under the aegis of law and order, but there is no mention of justice.

Martin Luther King Jr. has spoken of the arc of the moral universe being long, but bending toward justice. Under Trump, it is bending away.

Steven Zimmerman
Topsham

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Tagged: letter to the editor