The threat of unaccountable federal agents descending on American communities is the sort of thing the right used to warn against — and still would if Democrats were in charge. However, the White House’s reaction to yet another American citizen being killed by U.S. Border Patrol merits far more than a mere pivot in immigration enforcement tactics. That narrative seemed deliberately designed to undermine the core constitutional rights Pretti was trying to exercise when he was killed. The acceptance of such hostility to basic civil rights within the American right wing is an affront to what conservatism used to represent. Amodei is right that a “pivot” is needed when it comes to immigration enforcement tactics, but a pivot is also clearly needed within Republican and conservative politics.