The Trump administration’s cruel mass deportation policy has left people in communities nationwide fearing for their family members, friends and neighbors.
Although justified originally as a way of deporting the “worst of the worst,” this policy now results in the arrest, detention, and deportation of anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. Most have never committed any crime. They have followed our immigration system’s rules, checking in regularly while applying for asylum or citizenship.
None of that matters to the Trump administration. ICE agents arrest them, deny them due process, detain them in unsafe, inhumane conditions and then deport them. Some end up in war-torn third countries where they have no friends or family and don’t speak the language.
This is happening to good people who have been here for years, working, raising families, paying taxes, actively contributing to our communities. They work on our farms, build our houses, and care for our loved ones in nursing homes and hospitals. Employers need them because they do jobs that are otherwise difficult to fill.
Many came to the US seeking asylum. Like earlier generations of immigrants, they sought refuge from natural disasters, violence, wars, famine, or religious oppression. Some had helped our military in the war in Afghanistan. Others, like those from Haiti, were granted temporary protected status because a major earthquake and gang violence made their country so dangerous that our State Department has issued a level 4 warning (the highest level) not to travel there. Yet now, our government has revoked their temporary protected status and plans to deport all of them. In the meantime, they can no longer work legally to support their families.
All of this calls into question what kind of country we want to be. Our Statue of Liberty still stands in New York Harbor. Inside the pedestal, it still displays Emma Lazarus’s poem welcoming the stranger. It says:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Unless we are Native Americans, we are all immigrants or descended from those who once came here as strangers. That statue welcomed many of our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. They came for the same reasons today’s immigrants do. They built this country.
Our friends and neighbors now living in fear want nothing more than to live in peace, go to work every day and raise their children. Let’s reject the Trump administration’s cruel, shameful policies and instead live up to the ideals expressed in that beautiful poem. Let’s be the best country we can be.
Linda Cades
Easton
16 Responses
Thank you, Linda, well said. We cannot let the chaos du jour distract us from this ongoing tragedy.
Beautifully said!
Thank you Linda! I share your upset about the treatment of our immigrants and hope for our country to do better.
What an incredibly poignant article. We have strayed from our rich history as a nation proud of our immigrant heritage. May we show the moral strength, courage and fortitude to return to celebrating our shared heritage.
Thank you for you thoughtful views and compassion. I, and I hope many others share them.
Linda,
Thanks for saying so eloquently what so many of us feel; the sadness, the shame, the disappointment in our country’s outlandish execution of policies that are so unfair and misdirected.
This is far from the best that we can be!
Really? Another leftist “opinion piece”!
This is why Patriots in Talbot County plainly see what the spy is all about. Sadly for the spy Patriots have discernment. We know dnc media mouthpieces when we constantly see it.
There will be a real Journalistic publication who will fill this void…..
Donald trump is all that is wrong with this country and much of the world.
Yes! Thank you for expressing the sentiments shared by millions of Americans.
Well written and hard hitting. Thank you! Certainly more reason we must join to reject the current administration and all that support it. Get out the vote, make sure anyone who needs to get to the polls for the mid-term election can and do so safely. Help your neighbor, friend or stranger.
This madness must stop!
Lazarus’s poem is exactly what we should be striving to achieve. A small but powerful group of racists and bigots at the highest levels of our government are working hard to rid the country of anyone who doesn’t look and think like them. These people must be stopped so we can attain the kind of diverse and welcoming country we should want to be.
Perfectly stated, Linda.
Thank you.
Immigrants that come through New York Harbor and see the Statue of Liberty and coming here legally. They are subject to conditions, which they must accept. Illegal aliens are illegal. They are not becoming citizens. They are receiving the advantages of housing, education, health care, food, and more; without the conditions that citizens have. These unregulated programs take away from citizens as they increase the budgets of both federal and local entities. Those who opened the borders without conditions knew this world happen. I suggest you appeal to them about the humanitarian crises they created.
It’s great to read that the majority of readers share the same belief and ideals. We can and should do so much better by our fellow human beings who, for the most part, want what we all want. A peaceful place to prosper and raise a family. What’s happened to “love thy neighbors….”?
Linda, it’s a beautifully written letter, and thanks for speaking for the rest of us who are finding our administration’s immigration policies cruel and shameful as you point out. Our immigrant neighbors do not deserve what is happening to them. These policies need to be reversed, the sooner the better.
Deportation of undocumented immigrants is a policy central to this Republican administration. We should ask, especially those Republicans running for office in Talbot county, particularly the County Council, how the implementation of this policy has helped Talbot county. Specifically what economic benefits have resulted? What specifically has been the impact to crime rates?