ArcaMax

The guy on the trash truck haws a face like an Inca god in a half-ruined temple a long way south of Tiverton, Rhode Island, where I'm writing this and watching him through the window of my home office.

Is he in the country legally?

The only way to find out is for me to go out there and shake the guy down for documents, and he's in great shape from throwing trash bins all day and I'm 69 years old. Also, I want my water bottles and beer cans picked up.

Tiverton is a slightly rural suburb of about 16,000 people. Homeless people don't beg in the parking lot of the convenience store, there are no sidewalks in my neighborhood, and if you go out at 2 a.m., it looks like they dropped a bomb that kills all the people but doesn't hurt the buildings.

And Tiverton has a border with Fall River, Massachusetts, where I was born, and where I lived for 30 years until my wife Devborah and I sold our three-unit tenement house and moved to the suburbs. About 100,000 people live in Fall River, and every year, more of them are from Guatemala, Haiti and similar places of great hopelessness

And ICE is in Fall River today, picking people up off the street.

As a longtime resident of the city, I can name at least three good-sized businesses they should hit.

In past columns, I've skirted around my opinion of ICE and immigration enforcement because my opinion is moderate enough that it angers both sides. In America, being a fanatic of either left or right gets you instant friends. Being toward the middle means everyone hates you.

What I think is that people in the country illegally are subject to arrest without notice. Most arrests happen without notice. After arrest, immigrants without proper paperwork can be detained, their matter can be adjudicated and, if needed, they can be shipped home.

I believe that because it's the law, and every presidential administration has deported people.

However, I believe that all arrests, detainments and adjudications must be done in accordance with the law, and I believe everyone arrested has to be treated humanely.

I don't believe, as some people say, that "they're in the country illegally so they don't have any rights."

Of course they do, and those rights are in the law books, just like my rights.

If your kid gets arrested because he's got half an Oxycontin in his pocket, you're going to insist he have access to every right in the lawbooks. I agree with you, but I think Carlos the illegal construction worker also gets every right he has coming.

It's easy for me to say: "Screw your kid. The little junky got caught with drugs. Beat hell out of him and lock him up. No trial. What the hell does he need a trial for? He had the stuff on him."

In other words, I'm not a weak-minded Commie soy boy, and I'm not a pin-headed, redneck fascist bigot.

I'm the guy who wants the law applied fairly, but I want the law applied. I'm a middle-class homeowning American, and I want laws, and I want my recycling picked up.

I don't think ICE should be abolished, but I think ICE needs to be run according to the highest legal standards. I think that about the local parks department, too. I think ICE trained too many people too quickly, and they're being pushed to put numbers on the board, and they're sloppy.

Right now, ICE is working about 3 miles from my house, and the recycling truck just pulled away with a guy who "looks" Hispanic hanging off the back.

My recycling is picked up every Wednesday. The guy who hefts the bin and empties it into the back of the truck never drops anything on the ground, and he doesn't leave the bin in the middle of the street, and he never throws the empty bin through my front window. I guess he's been trained to do the job, even if it is just trash.

Besides, if he does any of those things, I can call the town, and, if enough of town residents call and complain, he'll get fired. He's not allowed to be sloppy.

To find out more about Marc Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's latest book, a collection of his best columns, is called "Mean Old Liberal." It is available in paper back from Anazon.com, and for Nook, Kindle, and iBooks.