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I’m writing about the Sept. 4 BDN article about Maine seeing the nation’s third highest jump in ICE arrests of people with no criminal record.
The U.S. has a history of immoral acts: The treatment of native peoples; the act of owning slaves with continued systemic racism; the imprisonment of 120,000 people of Japanese descent (approximately two-thirds were U.S. citizens) during World War II; and other historical and current immoral actions against people of differing race, religions and sexual orientation and gender identity.
Now we have a president who seems on a cruel and immoral path to remove immigrants who have no criminal record and who are hard-working neighbors and friends. Some are shot and killed or injured.
Many are held in detention centers with reportedly minimal attention to their needs. While in these centers, immigrants reportedly have very restrictive interactions with family, and getting legal representation is difficult because of all the barriers the government has instituted. When an immigrant receives their final removal order, they are often deported from the U.S. to dozens of countries with no advance warning given to the detainee, their families, or their legal counsel.
Now the government is threatening to send ICE agents to voting locations in November. All done by the government in order to try to intimidate us from action.
Voting is all we have left to change the dire path that President Donald Trump has put our country on. So, please go and vote and help get neighbors to the polls as Trump is also trying to disrupt mail-in voting. Don’t let Trump get away with his despotic behavior!
Karen Jo Young
Corea