Gutierrez makes point of his arrest to get in faces of those opposed to real reform of federal immigration policy

It sounds like a dramatic moment; Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., being handcuffed by federal agents. A member of Congress under arrest!!!

The "moment" of truth. Photograph provided by Rep. Luis Gutierrez

Although we should keep in mind that Gutierrez on Monday engaged in actions he knew full well would likely result in his arrest. If anything, Gutierrez was doing the equivalent of double-dog daring the Trumpites who now run the federal government to cuff him and take him away.

FOR GUTIERREZ ON Monday led a group of attorneys and activists with an interest in federal immigration policy into a meeting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Chicago.

Yes, it’s true that Gutierrez throughout the years has talked with such officials about various aspects of immigration policy.

But Monday’s meeting was the first he has had with immigration since Inauguration Day. Meaning this was the first such meeting of the minds, so to speak, in the Age of Trump.

Considering that President Donald J. Trump has gone out of his way in so many federal agencies to put people in charge whose political allegiance is to him and not necessarily the agencies they work for or issues they address, Gutierrez wanted to see just how reasonable the new president’s people were willing to be in discussing immigration issues.

OF COURSE, THEY weren’t. They continued to engage in rhetoric reflecting the so-called tough talk that Trump has been spewing – as in he wants to bolster the number of people who ultimately get deported from this nation so as to create a populace more to his liking.

Perhaps a populace that would actually give a Trump presidency a majority electoral support, rather than the 46 percent he got last November.

That was the point when things got feisty. When talks ended and Gutierrez decided to resort to the tactics of the Civil Rights protest era – pretending that immigrations offices were a Woolworth’s lunch counter in the segregated South.

The same basic principle, if not quite as dramatic result, as this lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C.

It became a sit-in, at which point the federal agents brought out the cuffs. Gutierrez was briefly restrained, then released, but left unaware for several hours as to whether he would really wind up facing a criminal charge for his behavior.

THE REASON I know this is because Gutierrez himself chose to use the same weapon that Trump uses to spew his political nonsense – a Twitter account. Gutierrez gave us updates in the form of 140-character Tweets, along with pictures of the moment of his restraint by the uniformed police officers that Immigration and Customs Enforcement maintains.

Which also means that the Internet became overloaded with the rants of nitwits who want to believe that it is behavior unbecoming a member of Congress to be arrested. Particularly in defense of foreigners whom they probably believe should never have been permitted to enter this country.

It is the problem with trying to have a serious discussion about immigration policy and what needs to be done to reform it – we have some people in our society who truly are malcontent enough that they want to thwart it.

That is the reason that former President Barack Obama was never able to get anywhere with his efforts to push for immigration reform – which is one of the failures of his presidency. Although I suspect the ideologue nitwits will claim it to be their ultimate success that they prevented a president from engaging in long-overdue action.

WE NEED TO come to a serious understanding of exactly what the criteria ought to be for people who want to have lives in this country. And no, a kneejerk keep them all out (unless they’re female with the proper physical characteristics to appease those males amongst us – including the current president – who can’t find an attractive wife otherwise) is NOT serious discussion.

Does Trump realize how boorish he's become?

If anything, Gutierrez served the purpose on Monday of showing us just how stubborn the new presidential administration is going to be in terms of not wanting to discuss immigration policy.

For if anything, they view immigration as the policy that creates the people who can be demonized for the political benefit of the xenophobes amongst us.

While the rest of us would just as soon have the serious talk about immigration policy those nativists seem desperately to fear.

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