By Ben Bisbach
Mabel, MN
I still believe that immigration is a good thing. I still believe we need real immigration reform that modernizes border security and strengthens enforcement against those who are actually dangerous, while offering a pathway to citizenship for the millions and millions who have been here for years or decades. People who have married, had kids, held jobs, started businesses, and paid taxes. Human beings who in my mind are as worthy and deserving of being here as my own immigrant ancestors were.
My old fashioned view has become taboo in Trump’s America.
The days of going after “rapists and drug dealers” are long gone. They are very obviously going after everyone. They’re not trying to hide that anymore. Instead they are sending federal agents with masks and giant guns to violently rip parents from their kids, and drag elderly women from their homes. Masked, armed government agents going door to door demanding to know “where the Asians are.” Masked, armed government agents pulling up in unmarked cars to people who “look Mexican” and snatching them off the street, no warrant, no charges, just taken, leaving their loved ones to panic wondering where Dad is and if they will ever see him again. Masked, armed government agents opening fire on an American citizen, a suburban mother of three, shot dead in her car while trying to pull away. Whose final words to the agent before he opened fire were “I’m not mad at you.” (Watch the videos for yourself. Make sure they’re real, and not AI generated)
I see this open and proud violence being inflicted by the federal government on the people of our state. And I see conservative figures enthusiastically inviting this assault, some of them downright gleeful at the brutality and cruelty. A few acknowledge privately that they have their doubts about what the feds are doing, but they fail to take a stand in any meaningful way. The days of Reagan are ancient history. Today, absolute loyalty to Donald Trump is the only non-negotiable principle for Republican politicians.
(Another example: As I write, congressional Republicans are debating amongst themselves whether they will finally draw a line at the invasion of Greenland, or if maybe it would be easier to keep quiet let Trump attack a close ally, thereby destroying the NATO alliance that has protected us from Russia for 80 years)
The government now says its agents have “absolute immunity.” Absolute immunity for the President’s personal army, just like the Gestapo or the KGB. Have you ever heard of a more un-American concept? All our rights and freedoms, whether we’re citizens or not, subject to the whims of masked, armed agents of the federal government.
I find myself thinking about all the people with the “Don’t Tread On Me” flags. Isn’t this what you were worried about?
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