The Globe’s website had a curious juxtaposition of immigration stories this morning. … Here’s the headline of one of the prominently placed stories: “ICE Boston arrests suspected gang member with 17 criminal convictions in Mass., officials say.” … And here’s the headline on the other prominently placed story: “Thousands of migrants legally fled to Mass. under a Biden-era policy. Trump’s latest directive could change everything.” I point this out because it’s possible, believe it or not, to read both stories and hold dual views on today’s heated immigration debate: A.) Supporting a crackdown on criminal immigrants and B.) Opposing crackdowns on non-criminal immigrants who were lured/encouraged to come to the U.S. by policies set by the president of the United States. …

As stated in the post below (“Lynch and Healey’s reasonable stands on immigration”), Dems need to make crystal clear they’re for the detention and deportation of known immigrant criminals and gang members – but against mass round-ups of law-abiding immigrants. It’s critical that they distinguish between the two – or Trump is going to win this debate. … And to repeat: Gov. Maura Healey gets it. But I’m not sure other Dems do.

P.S. – One last point: Check out this Federalist piece (don’t ask me how I ended up on its website). The conservative author kind of spills the beans about why he favors a crackdown on all immigrants who arrived here – and why he favors very low legal immigration in general. Because “they” can never truly adapt to “our” culture. … Not all conservative think in this nativist way. But you know a whole lot of them do. As the author notes: “We have to get comfortable saying these things and defending them. “