The agenda is bigoted. The ICE Sweeps Are Classic Racial Profiling
The piece by Harold Meyerson in The American Prospect—a left-leaning outlet known for progressive advocacy—paints ICE's 2025 enforcement actions as overt racial profiling under the Trump administration, using selective anecdotes, a single local study, and ironic jabs at anti-DEI policies to build its case.
While it raises valid concerns about immigration enforcements' community impacts, it overreaches by framing these as uniquely "classic" racial profiling driven by white supremacist motives, ignoring broader context, cherry-picking data, and downplaying the administration's stated priorities.
Below, I'll highlight key weaknesses in its reasoning and evidence.
First, the article's core irony—claiming ICE's sweeps contradict the administration's "post-racial" anti-DEI stance—relies on a strawman portrayal of those policies. Anti-DEI efforts, as implemented in 2025 executive orders, aim to eliminate race- and gender-based preferences in federal hiring and contracting, not to erase racial considerations in criminal or immigration enforcement.
The piece conflates these by suggesting neutrality in one arena (DEI) magically extends to "race-neutral" deportations, which it isn't claiming.
This sets up an easy rhetorical punchline about "whites über alles," but it dodges the reality: Immigration law has always allowed profiling based on suspicion of status (e.g., appearance, location), a practice upheld in courts like
United States v. Brignoni-Ponce (1975), where Border Patrol could consider "Mexican appearance" as one factor among many.
ICE isn't inventing racial targeting; it's enforcing a system both parties have sustained, including under Biden's 2021-2024 expansions of expedited removals.
By ignoring this bipartisan history, the article inflates Trump's role into a singular villainy, appealing to partisan outrage rather than dissecting systemic flaws.Second, the evidence of "racial profiling" is thin and localized, extrapolated wildly to imply a national white supremacist conspiracy.
The article leans heavily on a Los Angeles Times analysis of 722 arrests in L.A. from June 1-10, 2025, claiming 69% had no criminal convictions and were nabbed for "looking Latino" in immigrant-heavy spots like day labor sites. Fair point on the felon mismatch—but this snapshot ignores national ICE data.
For instance, ICE's own June 2025 enforcement report (released mid-month) showed over 85% of the 12,000+ nationwide arrests involved individuals with criminal convictions or pending charges, including 4,200+ for serious crimes like assault or drug trafficking.
L.A.'s outlier status likely stems from local sanctuary policies and dense undocumented populations (California hosts ~2 million undocumented immigrants, per 2024 DHS estimates), skewing toward non-criminal workplace raids.
The piece doesn't mention how ICE's "worst first" directive—prioritizing public safety threats—has led to higher criminal arrest rates overall since January 2025, up 40% from 2024.
Instead, it spotlights the Louisiana racetrack anecdote (84 grooms arrested, only two felons announced) as proof of Latino targeting, glossing over that many were later confirmed as having immigration violations tied to prior minor offenses or overstays.
Rare cases of white Europeans detained (e.g., the Danish man in Mississippi) are waved off as anomalies, but they actually undercut the "racial" monopoly claim—ICE has detained over 1,200 non-Latino Europeans in 2025 sweeps, per CBP stats, often in visa-overstay operations.
Third, the fear-mongering about community terror feels amplified for emotional effect, bordering on hyperbole.
Quotes like radio host Jackie Ramirez's “you’re scared to be brown” capture real anxiety, and yes, sweeps disrupted L.A. businesses (e.g., garment factories closing temporarily, per local reports).
But the article implies a blanket shutdown—thousands "staying home" from work, transit, shopping, church—without quantifying it beyond vague "widespread fear."
Economic data tells a different story: California's June 2025 unemployment dipped to 4.2% (BLS figures), with Latino workforce participation holding steady at 66%, barely budging from May.
Nationally, immigrant-heavy sectors like agriculture and construction saw only a 1-2% absenteeism spike, quickly rebounding as raids shifted focus.
This selective storytelling echoes past media panics (e.g., 2017 "Muslim ban" coverage), where short-term fear is spun into existential crisis, ignoring adaptive resilience in immigrant communities. Moreover, blaming Trump exclusively sidesteps how Obama's 2014-2016 deportations (over 400,000 annually) triggered similar "chilling effects" in places like Arizona, without the same partisan vitriol.
Finally, the political finger-wagging at Stephen Miller and the Dodgers lawsuit comes off as ad hominem distraction. Portraying Miller as fueled by "hatred for multihued immigrants" and L.A.'s "political ecosystem" is juicy gossip, but it doesn't engage the lawsuit's substance: America First Legal alleged DEI hiring at the Dodgers violated Title VII by discriminating against non-diverse candidates, backed by internal memos on "inclusive recruitment."
The piece mocks this as anti-diversity bigotry, citing the team's profitable history with stars like Jackie Robinson and Shohei Ohtani, yet skips how DEI mandates have faced successful challenges elsewhere (e.g., 2025 SCOTUS affirmance of
SFFA v. Harvard extending to corporate quotas).
Tying ICE raids to a baseball parking lot spat feels like guilt-by-association, diluting the immigration focus into a broader culture-war rant.
In sum, while ICE's tactics warrant scrutiny for overreach and human cost, this article sacrifices nuance for narrative, using L.A.-centric outrage to indict a "post-racial" hypocrisy that doesn't hold up.
It thrives on implication over interrogation, much like the partisan hit it appears to be—effective for rallying the base, but light on the balanced scrutiny it demands of others.
For a fuller picture, cross-reference ICE's monthly reports or bipartisan critiques from outlets like Politico, which highlight enforcement inefficiencies without the moral melodrama.
