@BarefootBliss wrote:
I'm horrified to see ICE being used as a military force. I am sorry for what you witnessed.
I feel compelled to share a personal connection.
My son-in-law, a legal US resident, has a brother who came to the US in the mid-90s. The brother was not here legally.
I get it. Illegal. Wrong. Full Stop.
He found work here quickly, then went on to form his own company, eventually ending up with 4 employees of his own.
He eventually married, had children.
Life went on like this for more than 25 years...
Several months ago, he was taken away during a traffic stop, hauled off to a ICE detention center and deported.
Illegal. Yes, I get it.
So the US, is free of one less illegal, but what has been left behind?
Those 4 employees were thrown out of work and they went on public assistance.
The wife and children, suddenly had no income, they went on public assistance.
That little business shut down. Those customers were corporations, they had to find a replacement service.
All that economic activity came to a grinding halt.....just so we could get one illegal person out of the US.
I have to question the wisdom or lack thereof, employed in these situations.
I strongly support previous administrations who had amnesty programs based on individual circumstances.
Not a brute force, jackbooted thug mentality.
During the campaign, voters were told the US was going to go after criminals, bad guys, rapists. Not peaceful business owners, paying taxes.
People believe what they want to believe.
The rest of us live with the consequences.
I’m so sorry for the pain your family has experienced as a result of these straight-out illegal fear and intimidation tactics …and everyone else wrongfully persecuted before for being from a different nation, having darker skin, or a disability…because this isn’t new, it’s just in our faces.
My heart aches for the children, some of whom are without both parents, and the little ones who did nothing wrong handcuffed, ordered taken from thier parents by a Judge, and can’t be found, and so many who’ve died in the “detention centers.”
We are all people. We love our families. We want to give our children safety, love, and a better life.
Not every “illegal” is a criminal, and not all ICE victims are illegals or criminals.
My daughter teaches special ed in a public school in southern CA with a significant population of mixed nationality. Even those who are completely legal live in daily fear that they will get off the school bus and their parents will be gone (or worse lying in pools of blood), worried they will have nowhere to live, and end up in the system at the mercy of strangers
This goes far beyond the public assistance issue (which the anticipated big bill will gut) to the destruction of innocent lives and families, needless starvation, illness, and suffering that will turn us into a “3rd world” nation and haunt those effected for generations.
And, they’re not just taking people with questionable histories. They’re also killing. Falsely accusing, and unlawfully taking those trying to be decent human beings.
A local college professor was at a (peaceful) protest along with others, including a disabled woman in a wheelchair. ICE arrived in full Kevlar regalia brandishing weapons and fired tear gas into the crowd. One canister became stuck in the wheelchair mechanism preventing the terrified woman from moving or fleeing. The fully legal, state university professor went to remove the tear gas canister from the fully legal disabled woman’s wheelchair so she could get to safety. ICE accused him of assaulting an officer and carted them both off to an undisclosed location, despite many eyewitnesses who saw what really happened.
It took weeks of expensive tactical legal proceedings by the teachers Union to get them out, traumatized, and mistreated.
They were lucky. Most of us don’t have that kind of support.
Had it not been for the courage of at least one other decent human being, I wouldn’t be writing this.
My Dad was 1st generation. His parents fled Poland and Austria as WW1 broke out, in fear for their lives in much the same way, and we all know what that became.
They entered through Ellis Island. My grandfather came from generations of carpenters, and found work quickly. When he’d saved up enough money, they married and moved upstate to a quiet area where he expanded his business, hiring other trades men, and built homes for soldiers returning from the war on Europe.
During the McCarthy…witch hunts, G-men arrived at their modest home on a summer Sunday after church as my grandmother prepared dinner for the family and their next door neighbors. The men in suits walked in, accused my grandfather of being a “communist,” went to arrest him and deport my grandmother and their 3 small children back to a war-torn Europe with no means of survival.
One of the family of guests present for Sunday dinner happened to hold local political office. He defended my grandfather and personally vouched for his integrity, at significant personal risk. The men in suits left and didn’t return.
That’s a gentle example of what many immigrants, the indigenous, people of color, and others have experienced in this country already.
I’m nauseated by what is going on. For the first time in my life, I’m embarrassed to link myself with a nation that would allow this to unfold…again, while the “career politicians” (whose primary concern seems to be personal profit) do nothing but spout empty rhetoric, as the oaths of office they agreed to are blasphemed, cementing their complicity in the abuses, rendering the human and constitutional rights we’re allegedly entitled to…just another peice of paper.
Someone mentioned the “Kitty Genovese” case study about “bystander apathy” in another thread. Apathy will just result in more abuse.
More violence isn’t the answer either.
Those responsible for the abuses of ICE, theft of public funds, illegal wars, and the Epstein Cult need to be held fully accountable and divested of their power, profits, and freedom as written in the laws that are being suppressed.
The tools exist to do all of that.
We are more than “bystanders.” We are the majority of the people of this nation, and we come in all colors, shapes, and backgrounds. It’s time to wake up and work together to fix what is broken.
We share more humanity in common than some would want us to believe, but it is because of our Humanity and compassion that we will put an end to this insanity.
(End of sermon)
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/2026 03:53PM by SBP.