By Steven Cohen, Ph.D., Director of the M.S. in Sustainability Management program, School of Professional Studies
When I became director of Columbia’s Graduate Program in Public Policy and Administration back in 1985, one of my first actions was to recruit Bill Eimicke to teach a course in public ethics. I have long believed that competent public administration needs to be ethical administration. Bill’s doctorate is from the Maxwell School at Syracuse, where citizenship and ethics has long been central to their curriculum. A decade later, in January 1995, Bill and I published an article in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science entitled “Ethics and the Public Administrator.” Our focus was not on the formulation of public policy, but on the implementation of policy by unelected bureaucrats. We did, however, devote significant attention to what an unelected official should do in the face of unethical policies and political direction. We simplified the rules offered by Carol Lewis in her classic work, The Ethics Challenge. As we observed back then:
“In our view, Carol Lewis gives the best specific advice for the ethical behavior of public administrators in her 21 rules of thumb, which we have reduced to five principles:
- Obey and implement the law.
- Serve the public interest.
- Avoid doing harm.
- Take individual responsibility for the process and its consequences.
- Treat incompetence as an abuse of office.”
Which brings me to the work of the United States Immigration and Custom Enforcement agency of the Department of Homeland Security; the organization known as ICE, its enforcement activities in Minneapolis last week, and its efforts nationwide to enforce immigration laws with maximum visibility. I do not dispute the need to enforce immigration laws. There is little question that these laws are outdated and in desperate need of reform, but they remain the law. It is clear that the policy of the Trump administration is to encourage what they call “self-deportation.” It is equally clear that their strategy is to terrify immigrants as a method of facilitating these “voluntary” departures. The methods they are using, unmarked vehicles, masked enforcers, and surprise raids, are counter to America’s traditional law enforcement approach and the constitutional requirement that presumes innocence. These methods have resulted in anger and demonstrations against ICE enforcement.
With regard to the Minneapolis killing of the mother, widow and poet Renee Nicole Good, I would maintain that at least two of the five ethical principles I list above were violated. The first was “do no harm.” Clearly, death is harm, and it would have been relatively easy to let the car pass and arrest Ms. Good at another time. It is obvious from the countless video angles that the ICE agent who shot Ms. Good was in no immediate danger, and he could have easily stepped out of even his own perception of harm’s way. He appeared angry and eager to deploy force. My guess is that her auto would have been easy to find had he let her pass. The second principle is to treat incompetence as a dereliction of duty. The same gun that shot Ms. Good in the head could have been used to shoot out the car’s tires and prevent her escape. Better yet, to avoid danger to bystanders and other ICE agents from friendly fire, the gun could have been left in its holster. The other elements of incompetence were the public pronouncements summarizing the shooting by the Secretary of Homeland Security. A competent law enforcement official would have said that an investigation would determine what took place, but instead, we heard a reflexive defense of her ICE agents. The same disinformation was reinforced by the President and Vice President. Their concern was media spin rather than competent law enforcement. The spin was half-baked and the law enforcement incompetent. If the goal of the Trump Administration is to reinforce political polarization, it is succeeding, but the price is unethical, incompetent public administration.
It appears that gunfire directed at motor vehicles is now part of ICE’s routine enforcement methods. According to Tim Arango in the New York Times last week:
“Maryland. Chicago. Phoenix. Los Angeles. Minneapolis. And now Portland. A day after a federal immigration agent shot and killed a woman in her vehicle in Minneapolis, federal agents in Portland, Ore. on Thursday afternoon shot a man and a woman in their car during a “vehicle stop.” The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the driver had tried to run the agents over. The shooting in Portland was at least the 10th since September by federal agents who are part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown — and all 10 involved people who were in their vehicles. At least two people, including the woman in Minneapolis, have died in these shootings. Federal officials have said the shootings were justified because the vehicles had been “weaponized,” and that officers’ lives were in jeopardy. According to the Justice Department, agents can fire at a car only under two circumstances: if the person in the car is threatening the officer or others with “deadly force by means other than the vehicle,” or the driver is operating the vehicle in a way that threatens serious injury or death. At the heart of the debates in many cases over the use of force by officers is whether a driver’s actions have posed a grave threat.”
Under the ethical principles we wrote about three decades ago, the question of competence and “do no harm” intersect. The question for law enforcement is: Can we enforce the law and protect ourselves without violence? It is not clear that this question is being asked. Instead, we see masked ICE agents visibly and forcefully engaged with the public. This is not typical of law enforcement behavior in America, where police are trained to de-escalate rather than encourage confrontation. But in the macho warrior environment of the Trump administration, restraint is for sissies. In a New York Times piece last week, White House correspondent Katie Rogers discussed the Trump Administration’s view of force as detailed by Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller:
“According to Mr. Miller, using brute force is not only on the table but also the Trump administration’s preferred way to conduct itself on the world stage. “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” Mr. Miller told Jake Tapper of CNN on Monday, during a combative appearance in which he was pressed on Mr. Trump’s long-held desire to control Greenland. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time,” he said.”
The international law that Miller dismisses was created to try to prevent a repeat of World Wars I and II. It’s true that these laws were backed up by the strength of the United States. The idea that force only exists if you use it is ridiculous. Here in New York City, our 35,000 NYPD officers have plenty of firepower, but their goal is to prevent its use, not show everyone how tough they are. The ethical precept of “do no harm” is the central professional value of that force. ICE might learn a thing or two by attending the NYPD’s training academy.
Finally, another principle of competent law enforcement is for federal, state and local agencies to work together to uphold the law. This is difficult to implement in places where “sanctuary city” laws have been put in place to prevent such cooperation. What is needed here is dialogue and discussion between law enforcement agencies to see if any compromise and accommodation can be reached. Instead, we see ICE adopting tactics and postures that make it difficult for any dialogue to take place. This type of approach may thrill anti-immigrant advocates and their supporters, but it is a prescription for harm and unethical behavior.
The challenges presented by ICE and its willingness to fire first and ask questions later are a challenge to our traditional mode of law enforcement. The Trump Administration’s lack of regard for the Constitution and for civil rights has resulted in unethical public administration. I fear more will follow.
Views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Columbia School of Professional Studies or Columbia University.
About the Program
The Columbia University M.S. in Sustainability Management program offered by the School of Professional Studies in partnership with the Climate School provides students cutting-edge policy and management tools they can use to help public and private organizations and governments address environmental impacts and risks, pollution control, and remediation to achieve sustainability. The program is customized for working professionals and is offered as both a full- and part-time course of study.
