"Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?” he reportedly screamed at ICE officials. One ICE leader protested that the agency's lead, Tom Homan, said they're supposed to be going after criminals, not people who are just working everyday jobs. Miller reportedly hit the ceiling, furious that arrests aren't widespread and indiscriminate. Trump has repeatedly implied he was only targeting criminals, but as Charles Davis reported at Salon, that conflicts with his promise of "mass deportations." Undocumented immigrants commit crimes at far lower rates than native-born Americans. The expansive efforts to find and arrest immigrants in California, which kicked off the protests, appear to be a direct reaction to Miller's orders to grab as many people as possible, regardless of innocence.
But Miller doesn't seem to care about crime. Or, perhaps he thinks having darker skin should be a crime. For Miller, the goal of "mass deportations" has never been about law and order, but about the fantasy of a white America. His desire to deport his way to racial homogeneity has always been not only deeply immoral, but pretty much impossible. His impotence shouldn't breed complacency, however. As the violence in Los Angeles shows, petty rage can lead to all manner of evils.
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