In 1915, Amy Lowell wrote a poem entitled “Patterns,” most likely set in the time of The War of the Spanish Succession, about love constrained and lost by adherence to patterns, particularly social patterns and patterns of expectation.

Patterns are everywhere in nature, simply because patterns are a form of order, and life, and even the universe, requires order. But the closing line of Lowell’s poem asks, “Christ! What are patterns for?” A strong poetic suggestion that patterns in excess are anything but good.

In a very different context, laws attempt to impose patterns. Those patterns are meant to create societal order, but enforcing laws in excess can be tyranny. That’s one reason most societies have legal procedures and courts – to determine how the patterns of law should be imposed, and in what instances that such patterns should not blindly apply.

In dictatorships and authoritarian societies, patterns are imposed absolutely, and too often now, ICE is following that example here in the U.S.

The problem with ICE and its actions lies in the working assumption that anyone not legally in the United States is de facto a criminal and evil, and that they all can be treated in the same way.

What makes this worse, and I’d say evil, is that the Trump Administration, with various strokes of the pen, have turned tens of thousands of people who were here legally one day into illegals the next by revoking various policies of past administrations, ranging from broad cancellations of student visas to revoking work permits for refugees and others, and removing amnesty protections.

ICE agents are also too often applying a specific pattern (skin color) in initially approaching and detaining individuals.

Lowell’s question applies even more today. Exactly what are patterns (or laws) for?