Regarding recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions: This is kidnapping and in another time, in the USA, the perpetrators would be jailed, not the person being abducted. Immigration and visa violations are civil, not criminal, matters. ICE detention, according to its own guidelines, should be “non-punitive” (not intended as a punishment).
But on TV we saw the image of a woman, here as a student studying for her PhD at Tufts University on a visa, abducted without warning or identification by six masked ICE agents. She was denied the most basic human rights afforded in a country that identifies itself as a democracy.
Many European countries and Canada now have issued travel warnings for tourists in direct response to President Donald Trump’s policies. These types of incidents are happening too frequently, sometimes used to crack down on protesters who voice their concerns about war crimes and genocide.
Trump has suggested he is open to deporting U.S. citizens to Salvadoran gulags. Who will he target next? Yet is was OK with him that on Jan. 6, 2021, that our Capitol was breached by violent protesters who later, by Trump, were called patriots and exonerated for their actions.
When we protect the rights of the least among us, we are protecting ourselves from what might very well be the same outcome one day. I am sure the people in Germany in 1933 did not realize how the far-reaching power of a dictator was going to eventually effect them and their individual freedoms.
If we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.
Katie Forsythe
North Huntingdon