Commentary: After a year of insults, raids, arrests and exile, a celebration of the California immigrant

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What comes next is a mystery, but I’d like to share a note of appreciation as 2025 fades into history.If you came to Greater Los Angeles from Mexico, by way of Calexico, Feliz Navidad.If you once lived in Syria, and settled in Hesperia, welcome.If you were born in what once was Bombay, but raised a family in L.A., happy new year.I’m spreading a bit of holiday cheer because for immigrants, on the whole, this has been a horrible year.Under federal orders in 2025, Los Angeles and other cities have been invaded and workplaces raided.Immigrants have been chased, protesters maced.Livelihoods have been aborted, loved ones deported.With all the put-downs and name-calling by the man at the top, you’d never guess his mother was an immigrant and his three wives have included two immigrants.President Trump referred to Somalis as garbage, and he wondered why the U.S.can’t bring in more people from Scandinavia and fewer from “filthy, dirty and disgusting” countries.Not to be outdone, Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem proposed a travel ban on countries that are “flooding our nation with killers, leeches and entitlement junkies.”The president’s shtick is to rail mostly against those who are in the country without legal standing and particularly those with criminal records.

But his tone and language don’t always make such distinctions.The point is to divide, lay blame and raise suspicion, which is why legal residents — including Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo — have told me they carry their passports at all times.In fact, thousands of people with legal status have been booted out of the country, and millions more are at risk of the same fate.In a more evolved political culture, it would be simpler to stipulate that there are costs and benefits to immigration, that it’s human nature to flee hardship in pursuit of better opportunities wherever they might be, and that it’...