Dear Editor,
As of today we’ve never had problems with our immigrants in Kingman yet Trump’s rogue police force (ICE) have been prowling around in unmarked vehicles stirring up trouble. And in this case an incident was reported to the Kingman police and The Standard news showed up on the scene and reported it.
Kudos to them and the ‘Good Samaritan’ who called it in. Events like these shouldn’t go unreported even though ICE temporarily detained the news reporter for just trying to get information. Nor should it be ignored by citizens even though ICE detained the eyewitness and told them when they let them go, “keep going and don’t worry about what’s going on.” But how can they or any of us when the Trump administration is weaponizing ICE against our families and friends and neighbors across our nation.
Anyone with any moral decency can’t ignore the recent tragedies with the Mexican husband and father with college-educated kids living and working in Texas for 5 years and the young Columbian man working in the peaceful state of Maine with his legalization papers where an ICE agent with a history of mental illness and domestic violence brutally murdered him in front of his wife and toddler.
Neither men with a criminal record both mistakenly swatted and killed by ICE. As horrifying as what this is and all the other horrific ICE attacks and killings there’s been no recourse or indication it’s going to stop.
Not under such a cruel and unlawful administration as Trump’s. Immigrants and citizens of color are being harassed and attacked and even Native Americans are having to remind ICE and DHS they’ve been here longer than any of us. Regardless how wrong all of this is unfortunately when power goes unchecked it can violate the sacredness of our constitutional rights; due process and freedom of speech and the right to ask questions and expect answers.
Yet ICE violates these rights over and over again. Always saying the same thing as the ICE agents told The Standard reporter, “They’re just doing what they’re told.”
Harassing and attacking anyone Trump deems a threat or just doesn’t like. But children and babies? I saw a toddler I was familiar with she and her family, a sweet immigrant family. Now she’s with a young white couple. It broke my heart her family was broken up and she was taken from them.
And it too hurt when I lost a friend when she and her husband were forced to leave the U.S. with the threat if they tried to use legal avenues to stay they would be separated and put in detention camps, regardless they’ve worked and lived here for decades raising a family. It’s not rational nor ethical.
As too it’s not for Carolyn Thomas who shared her story with The Standard. News about immigrant family she knows that they too are not the ‘worst of the worst’ yet being treated unfairly by Trump’s immigration policies. But this is just one of the consequences of elections and who we vote for. The atrocities with what the Trump regime is doing to immigrant adults they’re doing to children and babies. Yes we can agree to use our tax money to get rid of the worst of the worst and yes help children in need but we’re going after the wrong people and taking children from their parents that otherwise would be working and caring for them. In the eyes of many this is seen as child abuse and a gross misuse of taxpayer money.
But then I suppose foster parenting is a better alternative than keeping children and babies locked up in warehouses paid for with our tax money to private wealthy companies where they keep the lights on 24-7 with limited health care and activities cause many of these little ones to get sick and die that this administration doesn’t want us to know about.
Christ told us that to harm a child is to tie a rope around our neck and a millstone and throw it into the depths of the ocean. I don’t think it can be more clear: To hurt the innocent and vulnerable doesn’t set well in the eyes of God.
It doesn’t hold weight regardless who tells you, “Keep going and don’t worry about what’s going on.” We’re not the America Trump is trying to create. We are about people.
J.M.
