Opinion: It’s Huge — Few Presidents Have Praised Authoritarians as Much as Trump

So what does a criminal look like, exactly? On the campaign trail, Donald Trump featured the moving stories of the grieving relatives of those who had been killed by criminals who were in the U.S. illegally. In a promise kept, the Department of Homeland Security has introduced the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement Office, or VOICE, housed within Immigration and Customs Enforcement. DHS Secretary John Kelly said: “They are casualties of crimes that should never have taken place — because the people who victimized them often times should never have been in the country.”

Devaluation of black lives infects America to its core

It wasn’t really a surprise. Mecklenburg County District Attorney Andrew Murray laid out a careful case for why his office, following an investigation by the State Bureau of Investigation, decided not to charge Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer Brentley Vinson in the shooting death of 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott, who is African-American. Murray said he found no legal wrongdoing. Scott had a gun, Murray said the evidence showed that Scott didn’t drop it when officers shouted at him to do just that, and Vinson said he felt he had no choice, that he and his “buddies” were threatened.