By Charles Ashurst
A company that makes scientific equipment here in Cache Valley, Utah employed a physicist from China who came to the U.S. legally to get his degree and also to work here. He was doing excellent work and was well liked. One day in March, 2025, he got a letter from ICE telling him he had to leave the country. He got an attorney, who discovered that the justification for the deportation was a minor traffic violation that had occurred several years earlier for which he had paid a small fine. His lawyer put him in touch with another lawyer who was working on a class action suit on behalf of many others who had similar cases with ICE. The physicist was allowed to join in the class action suit. Fortunately, they won the case. He has resumed his important, valuable work at my friend’s company and he is now preparing to get a more permanent visa.
Doesn’t this beg the question of who is benefiting from this policy? We, the taxpayers, pick up the tab for expanding the ICE budget from $9.6 billion for fiscal year 2024 to $28.7 billion for 2025 (Note 1). This budget increase is for building and staffing the new concentration camps and for arresting, deporting, and/or imprisoning a good share of America’s work force (Note 2). We will also pick up the tab for the lost productivity of our immigrants. And then there’s just the pure evil of it. How is this doing anyone except the prison industry any good?
