Paul LePage says ICE is deporting his relative

Well, now it’s personal for Paul LePage. The former Maine governor, currently running for Congress, told reporters his son’s father-in-law is being deported. His reaction was short and human: “not right.” No one expects a grandfather to cheer when ICE shows up for someone he loves. The personal has a way of complicating the political. That doesn’t make LePage a hypocrite. It makes him a person.

LePage spent his career talking like a border hawk. He knows the system is strained and the public is fed up. But this case shows what enforcement actually looks like when it lands in your own kitchen. The relative came from a country that isn’t on the favored list, whatever that means here. LePage isn’t wrong to be upset. He’s wrong if he lets Democrats use his family’s story to pretend the lights should just be left off at the border. That’s not the lesson. The lesson is that legal immigration is a bureaucratic headache.