Here’s an email from Tippecanoe, a resident of Whitewater, about the matter of immigration. First his message, and then my reply thereafter. His words in black, mine in blue:
Dear John,
I have been following your site with great interest. Although I don’t always agree with you, I think you have summed up a couple of local issues quite accurately. I am not familiar with details of the police investigations or the Star Packaging raid, but I do have one comment. It is my understanding that the arrests made were of “illegal” immigrants – not immigrants. I do not have any objection to the Hispanic population moving to America. Maybe the focus should be on helping the illegal immigrants to become legal immigrants.
Tippecanoe
Adams: Yes, you’re surely right that there is a distinction under the law between legal and illegal immigrants. I believe, with the Star Packaging surely closing, that the effort did not justify the expense, so to speak.
The raid is now portrayed — as you have sensibly mentioned it, as an immigration matter. That’s the primary take that the Daily Union, The Week, and Janesville Gazette all took on the one-year anniversary of the raid. What of identity theft? The raid was bad for the city, but the Whitewater police, I believe, damaged the reputation of our town, and have strained believability by insisting that it was an identity theft matter. (The Identity Theft Excuse.)
For all their efforts to make it otherwise, the raid looks to most people like an immigration matter, directed disproportionately at one group. (How to explain the odd — truly odd — former, but now discarded, Whitewater police practice of asking for Social Security numbers from drivers who were pulled over. In my whole life, I have never met a white person — and I’m white — asked that question. I’m sure that I’d be too busy laughing to answer.)
They’ve made a hash of the public relations on a matter that was, as I see it, bad already. Honesty and contrition would have worked better. There are few in private industry who have so bungled a public relations effort and still kept their jobs.
Thanks much for writing. Best wishes to you, and on those occasions, Tippecanoe, when you might be asked to speak in public, I suggest you bundle up, lest you find yourself in the regrettable circumstances of the politician who made your name popular.
Best regards,
Adams