Editorial: Political Calculation and Manipulation

“Immigration and crime are closely related.” That is one of the messages that resonated from the speech President Donald Trump gave in Congress, even though this notion is being discredited every day in the raids carried out against immigrants.

The millionaire made this connection the focus of his agenda from the day he announced his intention to run for president – when he said that Mexicans coming to the United States were “rapists”– until yesterday, when he had Jessica Davis, Susan Oliver and Jamiel Shaw Sr. as special guests. The two women are the widows of police officers killed by an undocumented criminal. Shaw’s son was also killed by an undocumented man.

Whoever has lost a close relative knows their pain, and their anger about the way it happened is understandable. The displeasing part is the political manipulation of these tragedies.

Those individuals were paraded during the campaign to expose their pain, which was used to accuse all undocumented people of these crimes. That is how frustration came to be directed at a scapegoat.

Trump uses the pain caused by these tragedies to link the people taken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the criminal who killed two police officers.

That is outrageous, an evil implication.

Among the people who are being stopped these days is Sara, who was removed from a Fort-Worth hospital in Dallas, Texas, where she was being treated for a brain tumor.

There is also Pastor Humberto Barralaga, from the United Methodist Church in Dodge City, Kansas, who teaches religion on Sundays and is in charge of Latino parishioners.

Also, Juan Carlos Hernández-Pacheco, from West Frankfort, Illinois, whose civic work has prompted the mayor, the chief of the fire department and the district attorney to write to request his release.

A high percentage of people who are being detained are not dangerous or have a criminal history. In Austin, Texas, these cases reached 55 percent of all the individuals arrested.

The new guidelines give ICE agents permission to detain anyone who does not have papers. It is a lie to say that they are only focusing on dangerous people.

This is not how public safety is achieved. That is something most police chiefs who know immigrant communities understand very well. Stop this malicious lie against undocumented people!