An Accomplishment

 

AN ACCOMPLISHMENT

I have been following as closely as I can the deportation efforts underway in this country.  It is quite an effort, or at least one is led to believe so.  Some people show up and take other people away just like that - - no warning, no allowance to get your affairs in order - - just like that you, the deportee, are whisked away to places unknown.

What I have been asking myself is "What is being accomplished by whisking people away without warning, without a hearing, without judicial notice, without anything?" All due to  some person, some organization having studied the information available and has targeted you to disappear.   The only similar situation, to my knowledge, is exactly how the Jews were disappeared in Germany.  The Gestapo or whomever, showed up one night and took you away and no one knew whereto.

But my question is "What is being accomplished?" From what I can gather nothing other than making life miserable for the people being disappeared.  I mean nothing ascertainable.  People are being disappeared who have been here for years, working, buying things, raising their children, paying into social security on which they will never get a return.  Legal or illegal, the vast majority of people coming to the United States are coming here for the same reason that people have always come here, for a new start.  That's why your ancestors came here.

Now I,  being a criminal defense attorney, am aware of the population of this country who do not work or if they do, under the table for a few bucks to get something to eat, the population who spend most of their time being high, getting high, finding the drugs to get them high or are otherwise simply dysfunctional.  These people are American citizens who can not be deported and who contribute nothing to the society in which they live; they have a negative value.  And yet, we want to deport people who work, pay their bills, and actually contribute.  To my way of thinking the current efforts are counter productive.

Now we, the people, seemingly have always needed a scapegoat, a group who one is required to dislike and be rid of.  For years now, we have heard that these illegal immigrants are bad, do bad things, and are otherwise undesirable.  This has been the mating call of the Republican Party for years  and as with many things to our uninformed citizenry, you hear it often enough it becomes factual.

And, it's just nonsense.

Richard E H Phelps II

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