Well, we could just cancel baseball.
And, to be safe, every doughnut shop in Los Angeles should be closed pending investigation.
Some Dodgers fans might be undocumented, which could explain why federal agents were camped near Dodger Stadium on Thursday but denied entry.
Or there could be another reason.
Roughly a quarter of the players in Major League Baseball are from outside the country. Those foreigners have visas, as I understand it, but these days, the Trump administration has made clear that temporary protected legal status is no guarantee against ejection. Not from a game, but from the country.
Has anybody checked Shohei Ohtani’s papers lately? Or those of Teoscar Hernández, Kim Hye-seong or Yoshinobu Yamamoto?
And what about the doughnuts?
It’s no secret in Los Angeles that a lot of doughnut shops are run by immigrants. So it can’t be a coincidence that, on Wednesday, agents arrested several men at a bus stop near a Winchell’s Donut House in Pasadena.
State Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) posted comments and video on social media.
“As you can see, these ICE agents are pointing guns at innocent individuals, no warrants, no explanations, just fear and intimidation,” Chu wrote, adding that agents “masked and armed like a militia” constitute an “absolutely vile” abuse of power.
This country is under threat like never before. Immigrants playing baseball, making doughnuts, hustling construction jobs at day laborer sites, changing the diapers of seniors with physical and cognitive disabilities.
But for all of that, it can be a little difficult at times to follow the Trump administration’s thinking.
One day we were told the plan is to make 3,000 arrests a day.
Then Trump quickly reversed course, saying raids on farms, hotels and restaurants would be curtailed because he learned in a shocking revelation from employers that “our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace.”
Then, almost immediately, the administration is back to going after everyone.
I have a hunch as to why that is.
First of all, it’s worth noting that consistency has long been an issue for the president, so much so that he should be wearing flip-flops at all times. To the Oval Office, to the golf course, to bed. Everywhere.
And yet, although we’re used to him saying one thing and doing another, I think something else is at play here.
Trump has kept some campaign promises, but struck out on key vows, and he’s not a guy who handles defeat well.
Grocery prices were supposed to drop on Day 1, and a new age of American prosperity was about to begin.
How’s that going, folks?
He was going to end the war in Ukraine before he even took office, and then put an end to the war in the Middle East.
Hmmmmmmmm.
He was going to usher in a new era of budget accountability with his buddy Elon Musk leading the way.
Well, that was a quick and ugly divorce, and Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” adds $3 trillion to the national debt.
We know Trump loves to watch television, so we can only assume that after he threw himself a birthday party with a military parade on Saturday, he had to have caught news clips of millions of Americans marching at “No Kings Day” rallies across the country, including in red states.
Ouch.
I’m wondering if Trump saw the same sign I saw at the El Segundo demonstration, which was about a certain wife who hasn’t spent much time in the White House: “If Melania doesn’t have to live with him, America shouldn’t have to either.”
Weak men, under duress, flex their muscles.
Trump can deport, and so he will. It could ruin the economy, but that won’t stop him.
Catch a Dodgers game while you can, and stock up on doughnuts.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
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