Yesterday, agents of ICE used force against the people of Salem, Oregon. The news reports may focus on the spraying of tear gas on protestors, but this is only one episode in a campaign of terror. Our neighbors have been forced to hide and flee to escape kidnapping and the forcible separation of their families. ICE has shown no respect for the sanctity of courthouses, hospitals, churches, or schools, and no respect for communities that have chosen to provide sanctuary.
This has to stop. ICE cannot be welcome in our community, and our leaders need to make that known in no uncertain terms. The people who put their bodies between ICE and their contemptible work have their city, state, and country’s best interests at heart. They are the ones who deserve our support and respect.
The presence of immigrants in the United States may not always be properly documented, but it is not wrong—and things that are not wrong should not be punished. People seeking a better life, any sort of life they can live, should not be hounded and scattered across the “land of the free” by armed goons indoctrinated with white supremacist propaganda. We must welcome immigrants of all national origins, and our national policy on immigration must make a complete turn to the opposite direction, or we will descend fully back into the barbarous days of the Fugitive Slave Acts.
I may never be targeted for deportation, but I am not willing to define my freedom or citizenship in contrast with people whose only real crime is being from elsewhere. Immigrants are good people, and their enemies are the people’s enemies. It is long past time that America learn that, and adopted a policy of welcome.
Stand up to ICE, any way that you can. Do not accept what is happening, and do not let Trump’s agents ruin things further.
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