The government’s winter of discontent

Likely as much for political calculation as for serious consideration of what might be wise revision of its approach to immigration, the Trump administration initiated a rollback of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minneapolis. Trump may yet change tactics generally in a project that’s been central to the identity of his administration. Perhaps the winter of discontent will thaw.

For a few days it looked as if Alex Pretti’s fatal shooting by Border Protection officers would cause another government shutdown. Democrats in Congress threatened to hold up funding bills in the absence of ICE reform. We’ll know this weekend, but the tragedy seems to have at least narrowed the scope of a potential shutdown to the Department of Homeland Security.

A DHS holdup would have wide enough repercussions. After all, the Coast Guard, Transportation Security Administrati0n, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other components don’t have anything to do with deporting immigrants. If anything, Congress should narrow its focus even further to just ICE. The last shutdown did enough damage. Already the National Association of Retired and Active Federal Employees, among others, has urged Congress to separate the Pretti affair from whatever else it does about funding the government. Now that seems to be what is shaping up on Capitol Hill.

Not that it absolves ICE and its leadership from accountability, but the reckoning should proceed without holding the rest of the government — and the country — as hostage.

Meanwhile the Pretti incident produced the rare and awkward tableau of federal employees contending with one another in a deadly manner.

Federal employees can generally participate in non-partisan protest activity, with the usual proviso that it be on their own time. Pretti, a nurse at the local Veterans Affairs Medical Center, was within his rights. But did his actions exhibit best judgement? He had the right to carry a pistol, but was it wise? New video seems to show this wasn’t Pretti’s first encounter with ICE. The officers were chased and harassed, the shooters now on administrative leave, with what was in their minds still unknown. Let’s hope the president meant what he said when he called for a thorough review.

Both the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association and the American Federation of Government Employees issued opinions. The former said the incident showed how dangerous the environment for officers is. The latter denounced conditions it says the Trump administration created.

Certainly the last 12 months have been extremely stressful for federal employees, a couple hundred thousand of which lost their jobs. It’s impossible to retroject Pretti’s motivation and emotional state, but it’s possible that whatever objections he had to ICE policies and tactics were sharpened by what feds have been going through.

Sometimes “either/or” questions fail to explain anything. This is one of those instances. Seemingly contradictory or uncomfortable truths stand side-by-side — a “yes, and” situation.

• Law enforcement officers should treat lethal actions as a last resort, when their own lives or lives of innocents appear at stake. And, in the height of such tense situations, it might be wise to withhold external judgement of what an officer saw, felt or did until all of the facts are in.
• Every American has the right to protest, vigorously and loudly, what he or she sees as wrongful action by the government. And, inserting one’s self into a kinetic law enforcement situation carries risks.
• Federal law enforcement officers generally receive gold standard training. And, ICE has hired lots of officers lately. We don’t have insight yet into the training and experience of the officers involved.
• Politicians — presidents, cabinet secretaries, governors, legislators — must energetically state their positions. We pay them to do so. And, the level of  discourse by political leadership, not just of President Trump, has deteriorated into conclusion jumping, victim blaming, victim sanctification, use of repulsive street language and accusation-counter accusation. In short, childishness.

A little perspective: The nation has been here before. Things got out of hand between the National Guard and students at Kent State University back in 1970, after the Nixon administration had expanded the war in Vietnam to Cambodia. The turn of the war resulted in student protests and four shooting deaths. Nixon established a commission which found the shootings unjustified. The Guardsmen, legally, settled civil cases for a sum and had to say they regretted what happened. Not an outcome totally satisfactory to anyone, probably, but at least the incident didn’t go uninvestigated publicly.

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