So we decided to do our own version. We agreed to join in by having our usual protest at a different site and then walking as a group (which means marching, really) over to the office of our local Congressional rep (Chris Smith, R-NJ4).
Which we did, about 125 mostly oldsters in 25 degree weather with wind chill in the teens, first waving signs at the traffic and getting responses that featured far more thumbs than middle fingers raised, then marching down the sidewalk (which provoked at least a few déjà vu comments) to his office where we lined up to either request a meeting (which we knew would not happen; he hasn’t has a town hall since 1992, according to his staff) or deliver prepared letters.
I was among those with a prepared letter and the whole selfish purpose of this was to have a reason to post it here. Which I now will. :-)
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Congressman Smith:
Despite the range of issues on which we don’t agree, I’m sure there are some on which we do.
There is one in particular facing us at the moment which I hope fits in the second category: The violence and political terror being visited on our cities and communities in the name of combating “illegal immigration.”
There are at this moment 3000 masked armed federal agents in Minneapolis, in effect a secret police who are masked for the avowed purpose of preventing them from being identified (and thus being held responsible for their actions) and there is a threat of 1500 active duty troops being added to that total. They have been sweeping up the innocent (including citizens and non-citizens legally present), repeatedly exceeding their authority, brutalizing and now even killing, while utterly failing in - to the point it can be said lying about - their stated mission of going after “the worst of the worst,” as even DHS admits that less than a majority have any criminal record.
And they are doing all this, note well, not at the request, or with the approval, of state and local officials but over their direct opposition, with many of then calling it an “occupation.”
If we are not to have open borders, then there must be some kind of border control and someone to enforce it. But that is a role which DHS and ICE have proven themselves incapable of carrying out in any humane or even Constitutional way. DHS, consisting of an amalgamation of formerly-separate operations and which was formed only in 2003, should be abolished entirely. ICE should be stripped down and restructured from scratch under strict guidelines; to express it in a way you might find familiar, it should be “repealed and replaced.”
So I call on you to reject any spending for either DHS in general or ICE in particular until we determine how to deal with immigration without resorting to secret police terrorizing communities.
Having returned to New Jersey less than three years ago, I was not here at the time but I’ve been given to understand that during Donald Trump’s first term you were “something of a thorn in his side.”
Certainly, the same cannot be said now. You can do better. You can be better. Please do so.
There is one in particular facing us at the moment which I hope fits in the second category: The violence and political terror being visited on our cities and communities in the name of combating “illegal immigration.”
There are at this moment 3000 masked armed federal agents in Minneapolis, in effect a secret police who are masked for the avowed purpose of preventing them from being identified (and thus being held responsible for their actions) and there is a threat of 1500 active duty troops being added to that total. They have been sweeping up the innocent (including citizens and non-citizens legally present), repeatedly exceeding their authority, brutalizing and now even killing, while utterly failing in - to the point it can be said lying about - their stated mission of going after “the worst of the worst,” as even DHS admits that less than a majority have any criminal record.
And they are doing all this, note well, not at the request, or with the approval, of state and local officials but over their direct opposition, with many of then calling it an “occupation.”
If we are not to have open borders, then there must be some kind of border control and someone to enforce it. But that is a role which DHS and ICE have proven themselves incapable of carrying out in any humane or even Constitutional way. DHS, consisting of an amalgamation of formerly-separate operations and which was formed only in 2003, should be abolished entirely. ICE should be stripped down and restructured from scratch under strict guidelines; to express it in a way you might find familiar, it should be “repealed and replaced.”
So I call on you to reject any spending for either DHS in general or ICE in particular until we determine how to deal with immigration without resorting to secret police terrorizing communities.
Having returned to New Jersey less than three years ago, I was not here at the time but I’ve been given to understand that during Donald Trump’s first term you were “something of a thorn in his side.”
Certainly, the same cannot be said now. You can do better. You can be better. Please do so.
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