| This past weekend was a tale of two Americas. In one America, there was a sparsely-attended military parade with a 21-gun salute, a misplaced rendition of Fortunate Son and a UFC-sponsored political pageant. In the other America, there was a protest against the Trump administration’s immigration policies so epic that the posters and costumes and chants crossed every single state line. Although the gulf between these two Americas has rarely felt so insurmountable, columnist Clive Crook says the nation is not beyond repair. The key lies in its broken legal system. US immigration laws are a prime example, having been exploited, manipulated and weaponized for political gain. To understand why, all Clive needed to do was peer outside: “From my office window in Washington DC, I look down on an unusually complicated intersection. I can count (conservatively) one instance of law-breaking per minute. Cars making forbidden left turns, exceeding the speed limit, running red lights, using bus lanes; cyclists weaving all over the place, in and out of cycle lanes, on and off the sidewalks, scattering pedestrians; riders of motor scooters doing all of the above and more, at much higher speeds, all the time. A police car parked on the corner makes surprisingly little difference. We’ve decided, somehow, that these rules won’t be enforced.” He continues: “The immigration laws are similar, except that a closer parallel might be highway speed limits — where it’s understood that you’re a nuisance to other drivers if you insist on complying. The US has millions of immigrants who are in the country illegally; the economy would slump without them. Employers want to hire them. This nation of laws forbids it but allows it. The federal government taxes their wages. State and local governments collect taxes as well and provide various benefits and accommodations. Some cities proudly call themselves ‘sanctuaries.’ The rules say, ‘Keep out,’ but for years they have meant, ‘Come on in.’” Come in, care for our elderly. Come in, learn at our schools. Come in, drive our trucks. All those welcome signs have now been switched around by ICE. “Democrats are right to express sympathy for the people caught up in this aggressive turn,” Clive argues. But too much sympathy can be misleading: As Erika D. Smith says, “Los Angeles is a tinderbox of uncertainty,” and yet Mayor Karen Bass has pledged to “stand with everyone” who calls the city home — a blanket promise that will be awfully difficult for California to keep in the long run. President Donald Trump’s hardline stance on immigration is just as fallible: “If the president could snap his fingers and beam across the border every immigrant who’s in the country illegally, he wouldn’t do it, because it would turn the economy upside down,” writes Clive. Bottom line? America needs immigrants. Why can’t we have laws that are both consistent and easy to enforce — and don't change depending on who's in the Oval Office? Laws that aren’t convoluted or cruel? Laws without loopholes that can be cherrypicked by people with ulterior motives? Maybe these are the questions we need to answer in order to bridge the gap and come together once again. Meanwhile in the Middle East ... | After days of back-and-forth airstrikes between Israel and Iran, world leaders gathered at the Group of Seven summit in Canada with a lengthy agenda focused on de-escalating the conflict. Prior to meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump weighed in on the matter, calling it “painful for both parties.” At the same time, the US refused to back a proposed statement urging Netanyahu to de-escalate, possibly because the US needs Israel’s cooperation. As the Bloomberg editorial board says, “the US and Israel share one overriding priority when it comes to Iran: to prevent the regime from acquiring a nuclear weapon.” Israel’s initial sneak attack was successful in killing many of the officials in charge of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but bombs alone won’t stop Tehran, the editors argue: “The assassinated generals and physicists will be replaced, probably by even more hawkish successors. Those officials will have every incentive to accelerate efforts to develop a bomb secretly, just as Saddam Hussein initially did after Israeli F-16s destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981,” they write. “Diplomacy — however unlikely it may seem at the moment — is the only path to security.” If the prospect of an operable nuke weren’t enough motivation for de-escalation, John Authers says the global economy hangs in the balance: “This conflict poses the greatest potential threat to oil supplies in more than a decade,” he writes. But Javier Blas isn’t waving a red flag yet: “There’s still too much oil for the conflict between Israel and Iran to move crude prices by much,” he writes. That’s not to say that things couldn’t change, says Javier. “The biggest risk is sleepwalking into believing that just because two years of violence hasn’t disrupted flows, the physical market would never be disrupted. Particularly in the Middle East, it’s always the last straw that breaks the camel’s back,” he writes. Bonus G-7 Reading: Washington’s rethink on Australian submarines will only serve to help Beijing score points. — Karishma Vaswani | 
