ICE protest doesn’t add up
In Massachusetts, our institutions of higher learning are held in great esteem and there is no doubt that some of the greatest universities in the world are found here. That is why it is so confounding when so many students seem to think that 1+2 = 7.
For example, today at Northeastern University there will be a student protest to pressure the college to “Drop their contract with ICE,” according to the protest web page which estimates that “Nearly 2,000 Northeastern students, faculty, alumni, and community members have signed an open letter.”
According to State House News Service, the university has a $7.8 million research contract with ICE. The funds are being used on data mapping work that could help combat weapons trafficking.
Because ICE is the agency that collects such data, it only makes sense that they contract with a professor with expertise in the same field.
The work being done between ICE and Northeastern University has nothing to do with immigration policy or the separation of children at the border at all.
As with so many organized cultural tantrums these days, the truth is not the point. Symbolism trumps reality and since progressives are angry at our national immigration policy, which is administered by (and not decided by) ICE, everything with any corollary connection has to be deleted.
The protest had its genesis in ignorance, its scope has been decided by hysteria and the execution is conducted in blind petulance.
In short, what is happening today at noon at Northeastern University’s Krentzman Quadrangle is willful foolishness by students, faculty, alumni and community members who ought to know better.
If those who influence these young people to act in this manner think that the ends justify the means and that momentum in the direction of open borders must be seized upon to ensure victory, they should also be warned that hard-working Americans are watching this kind of inanity and making their own decisions.
Calling for the abolition of ICE is intellectually lazy, whether it’s on a university campus or in the realm of politics. We should endeavor to have a robust discourse on matters and not jump impetuously to an emotional salve that alleviates the immediate discomfort but ultimately spreads more discontent in the future.