More Roundups

I just heard another disturbing episode in the ongoing roundups of Hispanics at the Home Depot. I have felt badly and voiced my opinion about this travesty for people coming here to work and being deported so ruthlessly.

This time it is more personal. My gardeners were at a Home Depot in L.A. recently when ICE Agents descended on the establishment and took away 40 Spanish-speaking men. My gardeners luckily showed their green cards and were not taken off, but it could very well have been them, since a green card is not always protection these days.

The ICE agents, who are not police by the way, but rather citizens with a measly 13 weeks of training, are not professional law enforcement and lack skills. They show no respect for those they are detaining. The brutality of Trump’s orders are monstrous to say the least. It is terribly sad to think about people coming to this country for a better life and willing to work hard for that privilege just to be thrown out and perhaps imprisoned in another country. Whether here legally or not, they are not criminals and should not be treated as such.

If the U.S. policies have changed so much in six months, what are those with families and homes here to do? And those who left families at home to work here, how will their families survive without a bread-winner, not to mention his deprivation of freedom?

We need more opposition to the policies which have jolted our democratic system. Anything we can do, we should. It is not enough to feel bad, or hope for change. We must be that change. I just sent another check to the ACLU and am writing this article to reach more kind hearts of this country. I will also be writing my senators and representatives and marching whenever there is opportunity. Every ounce of energy to combat this upheaval of our system will add to the opposition until ounces become pounds and pounds become tons. We cannot give in.