Upper School symposium explores various aspects of immigration issue

By Emma W. '19

Last Thursday, Poly’s junior AP English classes hosted a thought-provoking symposium on immigration moderated by Poly parent Larry Mantle, host of KPCC’s AirTalk. The panel consisted of Angelica Salas, executive director of LA’s Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), and Claude Arnold, retired special agent in the Homeland Security department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

The symposium explored many complex aspects of immigration, including prosecutorial discretion; the conflicting interests of local, state, and federal enforcement policy; and the fundamental role of immigration itself as a piece of the economy and American society. Salas and Arnold expressed different opinions on the goal of immigration, the key conflict between their policy frameworks being humanitarian versus economic aims. The speakers also discussed the extent to which officers should enforce immigration law against those without documentation, the rights of immigrants in court, and the validity of sanctuary cities. The juniors will use the symposium as material in their study of argument and rhetoric.