The recent incident involving federal agents attempting to enter the parking lots at Dodgers Stadium has a bright-line connection to other L.A.-area sporting events that will begin in fewer than two months.
SoFi Stadium will be hosting 19 total NFL games featuring the Chargers and the Rams.
Unlike Dodger Stadium, where the gates can be accessed only through a parking-lot area not open to the public, the gates at SoFi Stadium are fully open to the public and not within an area to which access can be denied. Which means that federal agents can, if they choose, gather at the gates to SoFi in search of those who are or who may be authorized to be present in the United States.
It’s still not entirely clear what happened at Dodgers Stadium on Thursday. The team said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were denied entry to the parking lot. ICE called that claim “false.”
Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told NBC News that Customs and Border Protection vehicles “were in the stadium parking lot very briefly, unrelated to any operation or enforcement.”
That wasn’t the end of the matter. On Friday, the Dodgers donated $1 million to “toward direct financial assistance for families of immigrants impacted by recent events in the region.”
That wrinkle raises an obvious question. Will the other Los Angeles teams follow suit?
Immigration continues to be a hot-button issue, throughout the country. But it’s one thing to secure the border and/or to remove immigrants who have engaged in documented wrongdoing. The indiscriminate snatching and grabbing of human beings by federal officers who are inexplicably wearing masks raises very real questions about who we are and what we are becoming.
Right or wrong, these actions create real trauma for immigrants and their families. By contributing $1 million to the effort, the Dodgers have underscored the simple reality that the chest-thumping mass deportation effort has real consequences for those who are taken away, and for those who have left behind.
Maybe you’re wired to say in response, “Eff around and find out.” Or maybe you’re actually inclined to believe and live the lessons of the New Testament, and not to simply pretend to be a Christian.
