Opinion writer Mara Gay escalated the lefts rhetoric against President Donald Trumps immigration agenda this week, accusing many officials in his administration of being white supremacists and claiming they dont care about the political fallout from shootings involving ICE agents.
Her comments followed an incident in Maine on Monday in which an ICE agent fatally shot a Colombian national during an immigration enforcement operation, the second deadly use of force by the agency in a week after a separate fatal shooting during a traffic stop in Texas, as reported by Mediaite. According to ICE, officers attempted to stop a vehicle leaving the address under investigation when the driver allegedly tried to flee, and the agency said an officer, fearing for public safety, discharged his weapon, striking the driver.
Gay appeared Tuesday on MS NOW, where host Joe Scarborough demanded that Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) act in response to the shooting and castigated Republicans for supposedly allowing people to be gunned down in the streets. The segment fit a familiar pattern in liberal media circles: framing lawful immigration enforcement as inherently suspect while placing blame squarely on Republicans rather than on individuals who resist or flee lawful arrest.
The columnist opened by describing herself as a proud American and emphasizing that she was neither an immigrant nor a Maine resident, before insisting that the administrations actions had rendered every citizen complicit in these deaths. This is happening with our taxpayer dollars that could be going to schools, to health care, she said, echoing a progressive spending narrative that treats border security as a diversion from domestic priorities rather than a core federal responsibility.
Turning her ire directly on Trump officials, Gay charged: But the other thing here is the hardliners in this administration, they dont care about the politics because many of them are white supremacists and they dont care. Theyre cruel, and this is what they want. She then broadened her critique to immigration policy more generally, asserting, This is the same administration that removed protections for Haitians, for Syrians, at the same time, its allowing more Afrikaners, only white South Africans, in. So this is all one of a piece.
Gay concluded by questioning the political logic of the White House, arguing that the policy was both cruel and un-American and politically self-defeating. And when we ask ourselves, why is this administration doing something that is so obviously bad politics in addition to cruel and un-American, I think we need to really look carefully at all the anti-Democratic behavior from this White House, because this is not a popular policy. So why would someone pursue a popular policy in midterm year? she added, leaving viewers with a familiar progressive narrative that casts routine enforcement of immigration law as evidence of authoritarian intent rather than a legitimate exercise of national sovereignty.
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