by Chris Love, Corvallis
After the Gulf War ended some 30 years ago, my work often took me to Rafha, a Saudi Arabian refugee camp just south of the Iraq border. My role was to help prescreen Iraqi refugees seeking to be accepted into the US by Immigration and Naturalization Services.
The refugees told my colleagues and me many horrifying stories of persecution, torture and death for “offenses” such as refusing to attend Sadam Hussein’s political rallies. Their heartbreaking experiences prompted me to write home to my parents, “How lucky we are to be free, alive, and living without fear of our government … Could you imagine being pulled out of your home and jailed because you didn’t attend a rally for Bush?”
The words I wrote in this old letter haunt me today. I no longer believe we can live without fear of our government, and I no longer feel so lucky to live in America. We have always associated tyrannical thug activity with foreign authoritarian regimes like those of Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler. We deluded ourselves, “It couldn’t happen here.”
But now tyranny IS happening here. Masked, unidentifiable Gestapo-like ICE agents, whom Trump promised us would only go after criminal undocumented immigrants, are now dragging both legal immigrants and American citizens out of their homes to arrest them. Obsessed with meeting their quotas, they have used chaotic, dangerous and escalating tactics against protestors exercising their first amendment rights in Los Angeles, Charlotte, and now Minneapolis. All are blue cities in blue states targeted by Donald Trump because a majority of their voters supported his opponents in two presidential elections.
In the past few weeks, these quasi-military ICE agents have killed two American citizens in Minneapolis under highly controversial circumstances. According to Stephen Miller, these agents enjoy unlimited immunity from legal consequences. And after both possible homicides, Trump and Kristi Noem immediately — and prior to any fair public investigation of the killings – used the media to cast blame on deceased victims. Worse, ICE has denied Minnesota local and state law enforcement agencies participation in its now internal, and therefore suspect, investigation of two killings perpetrated by their own agents. Meanwhile, public trust in the Trump regime declines with each passing day.
Sadly, our Congress and Supreme Court have completely abdicated their Constitutional responsibilities to check an administration that has gone off the rails. These institutions have displayed none of the courage of our citizen protestors who are crying –and dying — to say, “ICE OUT!”
This is not the America that held my faith 30 years ago. Nor is it the America I wish to leave to my children or grandchild. Unless Congress and the Supreme Court begin living into their Constitutional responsibilities, tyranny will only grow in America. For now, Americans continue to risk their lives to exercise their First Amendment rights.
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