After spending a few weeks teasing us like the fate of the DREAMers was just another episode of the reality TV show we now live in, President Donald Trump sent out Attorney General Jeff Sessions to bring down the boom on DACA recipients.

Sessions said “there is nothing compassionate about the failure to enforce immigration law,” which is completely untrue when it comes to the DACA program, which was a compassionate way to deal with kids who ended up in the United States because of decisions made by their parents. The DREAMers I’ve met are hard-working kids who grew up here and, in many cases, have no connection to their home country. Focusing the prosecution of immigration laws elsewhere in the very definition of compassionate, as well as a smart use of resources. But in Trump’s America, Joe Arpaio deserves mercy while the brown kids get rounded up. Everyone is equal under the law, unless you’re a white racist sheriff guilty of contempt of court. Rule of law, indeed.

Now we’ll see if the GOP-controlled Congress can somehow get it together to pass a law protecting these kids or if they’ll be another casualty of the Age of Trump. Danyelle Khmara has the local reaction to the DACA decision.

Elsewhere in the book: Margaret Regan brings us some great details about the UA Museum of Art’s recovery of a long-lost de Kooning painting that was stolen in a notorious art theft 31 years ago; Tucson Salvage columnist Brian Smith introduces us to a man who cleans up crime scenes for a living; Eric Swedlund tells you about a great new boxed record set featuring singles from some of the best bands making music in Tucson today; and there’s a whole bunch more, but I’m out of space.

One more thing: We slipped up last week and cartoonist Rand Carlson’s Random Shot didn’t get into the book, so look for it in the paper edition on page 3. Sorry about that, Rand!

Thanks for reading.

— Jim Nintzel, Executive Editor

This article appears in Sep 7-13, 2017.

Getting hassled by The Man Mild-mannered reporter

3 replies on “Editor’s Note”

  2. Trump’s sending this back to Congress could result in their offering a similar plan to DACA. This would satisfy their desire that this be a legislatively passed plan, rather than an executive order. (Of course, they would have to repackage it enough so that their base would not realize it, just like so many in their base did not understand that the ACA was the same thing as Obamacare and that they had Obama to thank for their new found access to health care.) This may sound ridiculously optimistic. The reason I suggest it as a possibility is that I think this an area the Republicans were always willing to compromise on. However, they were stopped by their political strategy. Since the time of Newt Gingrich, their goal has been to show people that the government is broken and that only Republicans can get anything done. (The only time they were willing to vote with Democrats was to wage war or to pass policies that would further benefit the uber-rich.) Unfortunately, in the process, they have fanned the flames of anti-government hatred. They have created a base that is full of hatred of the other and has no appreciation of the way democracy works. Democracy is not a winner-take-all game, but one which often requires negotiation and compromise. I think the Republicans have backed themselves into a corner from which they may not be able to escape unscathed by the base they created and handed over to Trump.

  3. On Arpaio vs. the Dreamers: The Dreamers came to this country as children. They were not of an age where they could consider the breaking of immigration law. Joe Arpaio was sworn to uphold the law. He was not charged and convicted for trying uphold immigration law. He was charged and convicted for violating a court order, a serious crime for a law enforcement officer sworn to uphold the law. He INTENTIONALLY violated the law. Trump’s pardoning him sends a very terrible message. The foundation of dictatorship is the use of police/military to suppress civil rights.. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the extending of legal residence and/or citizenship to Dreamers, either outcome has no where the dangerous implications as pardoning illegal acts by an officer of the law.
    For those of you who are not convinced of the seriousness of this, think about every movie you have seen in which there is a violent dictatorship. You always see the police/military acting without due process. That’s how dictatorship and the suppression of human rights is done.

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