OPINION: How could we forget?

When I was five years old, World War II ended. I was too young to comprehend the horrors discovered by Allied forces when they invaded Germany. It took a while before reports of the concentration camps became public, and even then, I was still too young to understand the magnitude of the Holocaust.

The extent of the cruelty eventually became known from the news and later through movies and documentaries. They told how Jewish people were abused and targeted for arrest and total eradication. We were stunned to learn of the depravity of their captors and the inhumane conditions of the camps in which they were imprisoned.

Today, the last Nazi war criminals have been prosecuted and most of the Holocaust survivors have died, but the cruelty of rounding up people in violation of their rights continues in places all around the world. I just never though it would happen in America.

In America today there are thousands of people being taken away, confined in degrading conditions and then deported. I’m not talking about the criminal immigrants who need to be deported; I’m talking about immigrants living peacefully with their families, working at jobs and grateful to have arrived safely in America.

They are a mixture of legal and illegal. Some have green cards, some have been granted asylum or have pending hearings with authorities. Immigration and Customs Enforcement makes no distinction. They are in the business of filling quotas, not concerned with following the law.

Immigrants are being apprehended based on the color of their skin and the language they speak. They are being arrested at their job sites, their homes and shopping malls by goons acting like Gestapo secret police. Americans condemned the Nazis for targeting Jews, but like Germany in the 1930s and 40s, a group of people is now being targeted in America.

ICE arrests immigrants in places where they work - farm fields, meat-packing plants and construction sites. Their actions harm not only immigrants, but cause worker shortages and the loss of millions of dollars which these workers pay in taxes and Social Security.

ICE squads, their faces covered with masks and showing no ID, chase immigrants and arrest them without warrants, totally depriving them of their rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. It seems we’ve forgotten those horrifying images from Germany.

The number of deportations is actually less than that of previous administrations because this ICE operation is more chaotic and theatrical than it is effective. Instilling fear is their primary weapon for reaching deportation quotas set by White House immigration fanatics.

That Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill Congress failed to pass would have been far more effective and humane.

Polls show the public is uneasy about the extreme way deportation is being carried out. The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution protects all people from unreasonable search and seizure. ICE is not following the Constitution but, sadly, they’ve been given absolute authority by the administration to do what they’re doing. Hardliners are running roughshod over the rights of anyone they’ve decided shouldn’t be allowed to live in America.

According to recent polls, the majority of Americans are not comfortable with these actions by ICE, and approval of the administration’s treatment of immigrants has declined significantly. The most recent Gallup poll shows the desire of Americans to reduce immigration has dropped from 55% to 39%.

Americans do not approve of the indiscriminate and cruel manner in which immigrants are being deported. A record 79% now say immigration is good for the country. Perhaps they’ve come to realize the truth of something I read recently. “If you are an American, your heritage is either Native American, slave or immigrant. That’s it.”

That new tax bill just passed by Congress provides a shocking $45 billion more for detention centers, and $30 billion more for ICE operations, with plans to expand their force by 10,000 new hires. This is more than the funding for several agencies combined. Fortunately, some lower courts have ruled against unlawful deportations, especially those targeting people based solely on the color of their skin.

The administration’s immigration policies are yet another example of authority run amuck, another example of race discrimination, another tragic example of man’s inhumanity to man.

I never thought we would see Gestapo-type enforcement in America. How could we forget what happened in Germany?