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Warning



It’s intellectually lazy. It’s mean-spirited and generally unhelpful. And, for about two seconds yesterday, I wanted to do it. I took one look at this photo and thought, 

“This man looks as though he was born without one shred of the compassion and human kindness necessary for leadership or, barring that, has had them surgically removed.”


Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

The photo appears in the Baltimore Banner article, Trump adviser warns Baltimore, Howard County leaders of alleged immigration law violations, by Emily Opilo.The caption reads:

Stephen Miller, center, heads America First Legal, which sent warning letters to nearly 249 officials in jurisdictions it accused of “concealing, harboring or shielding” immigrants. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

It is intellectually lazy, mean-spirited and generally unhelpful to use someone's physical appearance as a way of criticizing them or to equate their physical appearance with what you don’t like about them. It happens to women all the time and I hate it. When a woman in public life does or says something people don’t like they are quick to drag up her weight, her clothing choices, her make up or lack therof, her relative prettiness or assumptions of sexual morality.

And I am here before God and these witnesses admitting that when I looked at this photo of Stephen Miller and read the article that his physical appearance seemed to symbolize to me something deeply troubling about what I already know about the person within the outer shell. There, I admit it.

Let’s move on. Here are the facts.

America First Legal is a non-governmental organization with no legal standing. You could describe them as a pressure group. They have no authority. 

Howard County is a Sanctuary County because the voters here chose to be. This is not a policy foisted upon the community by one person (ie, County Executive Calvin Ball.) People cared about this issue and voted for it.

Question A: Local Referendum by Petition (CB63-2020)

County Resources – Federal Immigration

The law prohibits using County resources for the following actions unless federal or state law requires it: (1) enforcing federal immigration and nationality laws or assisting immigration enforcement; (2) helping enforcement by collecting or sharing a person’s information; (3) asking a person about their citizenship, nationality, or immigration status or the status of another person; and (4) sharing a person’s status with another person. The County also cannot discriminate against a person based on their citizenship, nationality, or immigration status. County police can enforce state and local criminal laws and assist federal law enforcement other than their immigration actions. The police can also work on criminal task forces, even if a task force includes immigration enforcement, if County resources are not used for such enforcement and the police follow the other requirements of the law. The County must take specific steps to put the law into practice, including developing policies related to it, disciplining County employees who violate the law, and reviewing complaints of violations.

Neither Stephen Miller nor America First Legal have the authority to overturn the will of the voters in Howard County Maryland. They are not authorized to interfere with with the legitimate workings of our democratically elected government. Period.

This has not stopped some gleeful gloating in some corners of the HoCoLocal internet, however. It pretty much comes down to this:

Some big famous guy is going after the guy we don’t like. Woo hoo. That’ll show him! 

If you want to see what a hotbed of local racism looks like (but, really, why would you?) there’s a certain Facebook page where you can see it all hanging out right now. The tenor of the current conversation reminds me a lot of when people were writing to Larry Hogan during the height of the pandemic to “tell on” County Executive Ball for his COVID public health decisions. 

Isn’t that at the root of all of this, really? Some people are looking for the Big Strong Man to impose their will on others. And that’s how they choose where they place their allegiance.

Now, that’s scary. It certainly is scarier than a photo of Stephen Miller, all gut reactions notwithstanding. And besides, what evokes that deeply troubling feeling has nothing to do with what he looks like on the outside, but who he is on the inside. 


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