I'm not particularly a "news" person; however, two headlines stopped me this week: "South Koreans Are Swept Up in Immigration Raid at Hyundai Plant in Georgia" and "3 Students, Including Attacker, Shot at Colorado High School, Authorities Say." On paper, these are two different stories, but they both pose the same question: who is at fault when something breaks?
On September 4, 2025, federal agents conducted one of the largest raids at Hyundai’s Ellabell megasite, detaining 475 people—which most were subcontracted Korean employees—while Hyundai promised a supply-chain compliance audit and Seoul scrambled to help its citizens. The abrupt raid—which, I suppose, is what defines a raid—alarms me; why were vulnerable migrant workers handled so harshly, and why were they punished instead of Hyundai, the corporation? I care about these workers because that is what I grew up with: an immigrant father who left his precious hometown to work eighty hours a week, stacking Hennessy cardboard boxes, navigating this foreign world, and sacrificing his future, his hometown, his time. Targeting workers feels like punishing the easiest target, not the most responsible one.
On September 10, 2025, Evergreen High School—just thirty-six minutes from me—experienced a shooting that left two injured and the shooter dead. It now joins Deer Creek Junior High (1982), Columbine (1999), and Deer Creek Middle (2010) in my district’s tragic record. It presents the same question: who is at fault here? Many will blame the school shooter, and accountability for individual matters. But repetition—here in Jeffco and across the country—suggests the cause isn’t one “angsty” teenager; rather, the American system as a whole that keeps producing these tragedies. A commonality among these shootings involve the perpetrator being severely depressed (in some instances; most people with depression are nonviolent), and I can't help but wonder why. How did we create such an exclusive environment for them to feel so out of place, to shoot their own school?
Both headlines hit me for the same reason: we keep directing the harshest consequences at the most vulnerable—migrant workers, kids in crisis—while institutions get away with audits and condolences. Complex problems like these require more than punishing the bottom. I believe that the first fundamental step in tackling this problem involves confronting the larger system. If we want fewer breaks, we need to fix the system that keeps dropping the weight.