As ICE expands its arrest of unauthorized persons who have settled into the local economy and social networks within politically moderate or conservative communities, local media coverage can raise awareness among people who are otherwise indifferent to mass deportation.

Yamhill County a largely farming and wine grape growing area in rural Oregon. Its undocumented worker populations has been estimated at about 3,000/. The county has voted Republican since 1964.

According to the NT Times’ Nichola Kristoff, who was born there. ICE arrested in June and deported Moises Sotelo, an unauthorized Mexican who had lived in the county for 31 years and owns a vineyard management company employing 10 people. He has two American born children.

The local newspaper, the News Register, ran an editorial on June 20, “Immigration raids violating our nation’s proud heritage.” This kind of local press coverage of mass deportation in politically conservative communities are a crucial element in blunting and perhaps immobilizing the Trump administration’s deportation policy.

Excerpts from the editorial:

As long as federal immigration policy remains nothing more than fare for political debate in Washington, D.C., it may seem a matter of little consequence to people immersed in their daily routines in other parts of the country.

Even the occasional isolated raid or seizure — shocking as it may seem when targets are flown to prisons in Sudan or El Salvador in the middle of the night, without even the pretense of due process — typically fails to fully puncture the protective shield of not-in-my-backyard complacency.

But when heavily armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raid a packing plant in Omaha or a restaurant in Los Angeles — and haul scores of unsuspecting workers off to federal detention centers, leaving a trail of broken families in their wake — it becomes a watershed locally.

We experienced one of those moments here last week, when vineyard supply company owner Moises Sotelo-Casas was scooped up in Newberg, along with one of his employees, and spirited off to a federal detention center in Tacoma. His daughter learned of his fate not by getting official word from ICE, but by tracking his cell phone.

…. Sotelo was a 30-year resident who had peacefully and lawfully gone about raising a family, launching a successful, highly respected business, and sinking deep church and community roots. A GoFundMe campaign launched on his behalf raised more than $116,500 in the first week, attesting to his standing.

ICE said he had once been convicted of driving under the influence in Newberg. However, the district attorney’s office has no record of such a case and none could be found in the state’s criminal justice database.

Besides, a one-time DUI would hardly qualify him for “worst of the worst” status as a hardened criminal. And according to their daughter, both he and his wife have begun a legalization process under rules established during the Biden administration.

One local winery posted a message terming him “truly one of the most humble, kind and generous individuals we’ve met in Newberg.” It went on to say, “He poses ZERO threat to public safety. His family is justifiably distraught and we share their distress.”

Another local winery posted, “He is deeply involved in his church, pays taxes, and is the central moral and financial support of his family, including wife, children and grandchildren.” It concluded, “Moises meets all with a smile on his face and generosity in his heart.”

….. millions of workers are needed to tend, harvest and process fruit, vegetable and meat products for the American table. It’s hot, dirty, demanding work, and the American workforce is already at full employment.

Removing the immigrant element, or even a significant portion of it, is a recipe for economic disaster. And economic reverses tend to almost inevitably trigger political reverses.

The truth is, the labor of hard working and highly motivated immigrants, legal or not, has underpinned our economy throughout our history. A sudden cutback could thus carry serious consequences, especially in a nation experiencing a persistent, long-running decline in its birth rate.

Here’s hoping those realities will persuade the administration to ease back on its wrenching immigration crackdown, which is becoming a growing stain on our national heritage.