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Respect for rule of law is essential to democracy.
Ideally, of course, all laws would be enforced and bad laws quickly rectified by the applicable entity (Congress, state legislatures, city councils). Loss of respect for laws, even when it's as seemingly unimportant as people tacitly ignoring trivial or ill-considered laws, is cancerous to a democratic society's ability to function properly.
However, in the real world, there's nowhere near enough resources, both financial and material, to enforce all laws. Prioritizing those precious resources is critical. This is where, for me, the matter of enforcing immigration law becomes complicated and where I have issues with this administration's approach.
I think most Americans, regardless of political affiliation, want violent felons, drug cartel members, and other such persons with criminal records that go beyond their undocumented status to be identified and removed. IIRC, that was the goal pushed by the GOP platform during the election campaign. I don't recall hearing much about a massive, sweeping effort to get all undocumenteds out.
If a much more targeted approach that focuses on those hardcore criminals is deemed inadequate, is this very expensive, incredibly divisive broad approach the only way to achieve that goal? Then I have to wonder if this is a wise prioritization of resources. For my part, beyond the considerations mentioned in my first paragraph, I don't really much care if millions of undocumented workers who are just doing their (often shitty) jobs and paying taxes get discovered and deported. It's just not remotely the sort of priority for me that catching the dangerous ones is...dealing with the violent criminals and drug pushers. Even if the current massive program hadn't produced such controversial and often tragic results, even if it hadn't helped push the country ever closer to outright civil war, I'd be questioning it as an intelligent use of resources.
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