By Tom H. Hastings
My friend Henry suddenly texted me out of the blue two weeks ago. Henry is Aztec American, born in the US, raised in Little Village, a largely Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago.
“ICE is vicious,” he told me. “They are snatching anyone they want and just abducting workers, families out of their homes, children walking to school, tamale vendors from their carts!–it’s a nightmare. I carry my US passport with me at all times, but that isn’t any guarantee either.”
Watching the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents up close and personal is becoming more and more common for those who simply want America to live up to its creed. But nowadays, with all the power of ICE defaulting to the Trump project, courteous and professional ICE agents seem to be a thing of the past. Immigrants, no matter how solidly ensconced in their communities they might be, are now targets for arrest, detention, and deportation.
What did immigrants mean to America then and now? Ask our vaunted Statue of Liberty:
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Yeah, that was then–1883, actually the year my people came over from Scotland and were welcomed–this is now. That was the definition of what it meant to be American. Not now. It’s unAmerican to be American.
Here in my town, Portland, Oregon, ICE is simply unwanted. The mayor and city council found violations in how the ICE facility is run, the community is offering a great deal of nonviolent opposition, and ICE agents are acting like occupying troops.
I go there as a member of the Portland Peace Team when we are invited to help keep the peace to protect nonviolent demonstrators. We’ve gone out several times alongside an Interfaith Vigil group, with Sun Rise, and other groups that are explicitly nonviolent. We’ve been out in driving rain, at night, and on warm sunny days. So far, those who invite us have remained safe, either through our efforts, their own conduct, or by sheer luck.
Others are not always so lucky.
A short blind man was a frequent protester at ICE. Sitting on the sidewalk, just off to the side of the ICE driveway, he was suddenly grabbed by several ICE agents, all geared up for combat, roughed up, not allowed to walk, and carried into the facility. Local television reports showed the film and it was blatantly thuggish conduct by “professional” ICE agents.
This is the behavior of these agents across the country under Trump, masked, not identifiable, just armed agents of the state acting brutally with immunity and impunity. From rural counties losing thousands of steady farm workers to construction sites suddenly losing entire roofing crews, we are seeing our humanity degraded, our economy worsen, and our human rights imperiled or even lost.
Meanwhile, my friend Henry, who has made a career out of making peace–he trains inmates to manage their conflicts with nonviolence, he brings high school students on field trips to learn from peacemakers, and he bridges hostilities between Chicago’s African American neighborhoods and his Hispanic Little Village neighborhood–Henry now finds himself protesting ICE because of what he witnesses. Last time he went out he called me. He said, “We don’t know what will happen from moment to moment. I need you to bear witness.”
It is our duty and our privilege to bear witness. ICE has lost the respect that every government agency should seek, a respect based on admiration and gratitude for a job well done in service to the people of the nation. Now all they have is the ability to generate fear and loathing.
Dr. Tom H. Hastings is Coördinator of Conflict Resolution BA/BS degree programs at Portland State University. His views, however, are not those of any institution.
