This MAGA Ohio Town Could Soon Face the Mother of All ICE Raids

Springfield looms large in the MAGA imagination. In Vance’s mythology, it’s a typical example of a small Rust Belt city that got hammered by deindustrialization, and then got hit again when elites callously allowed immigrants to savage the place. The real story, though, is much more complex. While the influx did produce some social tensions, local leaders have regularly described them as manageable and immigrant workers have helped drive the town’s growth and revitalization.

Thus it is that even in one of Vance’s storybook postindustrial towns, turning ICE loose would likely encounter serious opposition—yet another sign of how toxic Trump’s real immigration agenda becomes when people get a close look at it. Time will tell whether ICE will be unleashed or whether removals will be more subtle. But however that goes, local officials predict that Clark County, which has benefited from Haitian migration to the tune of 10,000 workers, will take a hit.

Here’s the thing: If you vote for the ticket that tells you immigrants are eating your pets—the ticket that tells you mass removals are needed to purify and revive the nation and its heartland towns—what you’re actually going to get is social turmoil, violent ethnic purges, and serious economic disruption. If you are upset at the prospect of law-abiding immigrants being violently wrenched from your communities, next time don’t vote for the guys who lied in your faces so viciously about them.