immigration – Ben Jacques Stories

What would you have done then?

Deportation of Jews from Muenster, Germany, Dec. 13, 1941. Arriving in Riga in occupied Latvia, only one in ten would survive interment, forced labor and Nazi terror.

Sometimes I ask myself what I would have done if I had lived in Germany under Nazi rule. I remember hearing a recent conversation between the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and a college student.

“If you want to know what you would have done in Hitler’s time,” she said, “ask yourself, ‘What am I doing now?’”

“What do you mean?” the young man replied.

She continued: “What are you doing now about injustice in your own society?”

“Well,” the student replied, “to be honest, nothing.”

“Then, that’s what you would have been doing in Germany,” the survivor answered.

It was a sobering moment, and in the silence that followed, I thought of what had been happening in our country. I thought of George Floyd, murdered on May 25, 2020, by a policeman in Minneapolis, triggering outrage across the country.

That November Joseph Biden was elected president. Then on January 6, two weeks before Donald Trump was to leave office, his supporters smashed their way into the U.S. Congress, killing and injuring police officers as they tried to overturn the election results.

Four years later, riding a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, Donald Trump returned to office, promising to deport 15 million immigrants in what he called “the largest deportation program in American history.” He called immigrants terrorists and rapists and said they are “poisoning the blood of our country.”

In a nation built by immigrants, Trump and his associates have unleashed a massive and brutal campaign to remove them, most of whom are living peaceably in our cities and towns, working, paying taxes and raising families. The vast majority are Latino, Haitian and African.

Gabriela Soto holds a photo of her husband, Martin, and their two children. Martin was incarcerated in Delaney Hall in Newark, NJ, before being transferred to anther ICE detention center.

In targeted actions across America, masked ICE agents have abducted hundreds of thousands–fathers, mothers, students and children, then flown them to one of 212 detention prisons to await deportation, often to countries where their lives are endangered. Agents have shot and killed both suspects and protestors and dozens have died in detention.

At the same time, the Trump government has revoked the legal status of millions more, including those under Temporary Protective Status and the Dreamer program. It has also gone after those awaiting hearings on asylum and Green Card applications.

The cruelty of the mass deportation program is exhibited in countless stories, for the most part ignored by mainstream media. If you happen to join the protestors each Wednesday at the New England ICE Headquarters in nearby Burlington, you will hear stories to break your heart and turn your stomach.

You’ll also learn of conditions inside the Burlington ICE building, which provides temporary imprisonment of arrested men and women. A woman from the Dominican Republic said she spent nine days in a holding room with 16 other women sleeping on the concrete floor with only a Mylar blanket. The only bathroom was an open toilet and the room stank.

From the Burlington Center detainees are flown, often from nearby Hanscom Field, to detention prisons as far away as Louisianna, Texas and California, cutting them off from family and legal support.

Perhaps, you, like me, are heartbroken by the savage treatment of our immigrant population. If so, let me suggest two responses. The first is to go online to the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) coalition at miracoalition.org. It’s a marvelous, multi-service organization providing support for immigrant families and linking them to legal aid.

The second is to check out Bearing Witness @ ICE, online at bearingwitnessNE.org. Better yet, take the short drive over to Burlington, 10 District Ave., on a Wednesday, as hundreds of people like you and me gather to protest and learn ways to support not only those arrested, but their families, suffering separation and loss of income.

There’s more going on at the ICE center in Burlington. Here’s a list of actions scheduled throughout the week. Check out the websites for more information and updates.

MONDAY & TUESDAY—11 am to 1 pm, sponsored by FIX ICE, fixice.org/mondaytuesday.

WEDNESDAYS—11 am to 1 pm, Bearing Witness @ ICE Burlington, bearingwitnessNE.org.

THURSDAYS—11 am to 1 pm, Justice 4 All @ ICE Burlington, Facebook Group: https://tinyurl.com/48jkcznk.

SATURDAYS—10 am to 2 pm, ICE Weekend Watch, https://tinyurl.com/mutcubd.

SATURDAYS—11 am – 1 pm, No Fear Street Theatre, Corner of Mall Road and District Ave., http://www.nofearstreettheater.com/

Not long ago, on a rainy day outside Delaney Hall in New Jersey, my wife and I sat with a young mother whose husband, locked up inside, had just started a hunger strike protesting rotten food, harsh treatment and lack of medical care. She showed us a photo of him with their two young children. She recently suffered a miscarriage of a third child.

That weekend, her husband was secretly transferred from Dalaney Hall to another detention prison, where he was put into solitary confinement. He is still there.

If you want to know what you would have done in Nazi Germany, ask, what are you doing now.

On the Banks of the Saco

In the 1970s, having completed graduate school, I worked in construction in Portland, Maine. I was looking for a job teaching, but nothing had opened up. The crew I worked with all had French last names, and a couple of them spoke French on the job. They or their parents or grandparents had come down from Québec to work in the mills or in the building trades.

The crew included two brothers from Biddeford. Biddeford has been in the news lately, as the site where a Colombian immigrant was shot and killed by an ICE agent.

Biddeford is an old mill town on the south bank of the Saco River. The town of Saco is on the other side. John, one of the brothers, told me that historically Biddeford was labor, Saco was management. French workers on one side, Yankee bosses on the other. The kids from Saco called the French kids “frogs” and their city, “Biddefrog.” Same thing in Sanford, or “Sandfrog.” Same ethnic division in Lewiston on the Androscoggin River across from Auburn, and Waterville north of Augusta.

As I too had a French last name, and had just recently moved to Maine, John figured I should hear all the frog jokes from him, so I wouldn’t be caught off guard when I heard them elsewhere.

John also told me something that surprised me. He said that when the Québecois first came to Biddeford, and to other cities on Maine’s rivers, things got pretty nasty. He said his grandfather remembered when the Ku Klux Klan paraded in Saco and threatened to cross the bridge into Biddeford. But the French and Irish immigrants were waiting for them, and the Klan had second thoughts and retreated.

Maine, the home of several indigenous tribes, was colonized in the 17^th and 18^th centuries by both England and France. The French settled in Acadia, which included the maritime provinces as well as parts of Maine, and the English in central and southern Maine. After the conquest of Canada, British forces expelled much of the French population of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, sending them as far as Louisiana. Some, however, found refuge in Maine’s north along the St. John River.

In the 19^th century, scarcity of farmland and economic hardship in Québec drove thousands of French Canadians south. Maine’s mills and lumber industry needed workers and they needed jobs. French-speaking and Catholic, they were seen as a threat by the Protestant majority. The conflict between cultures sometimes became violent.

In 1854 an anti-French mob in Bath burned the Catholic church. In Ellsworth, a mob tarred and feathered a Catholic priest. In 1919 a law was passed banning the speaking or teaching of French in schools.

The 1920s saw the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, which directed its hostility not against African Americans, of which there were precious few, but toward French and Irish Catholics. In 1924 in the town of Greenville, forty Ku Klux Klansmen went after union workers trying to organize French lumbermen. Later that year, the Klan exploded a bomb in Lewiston, which had the largest Franco-American population in the state. At one time, the Klan counted over 100,000 members.

Although the Klan’s influence dropped off sharply in coming years, it did manage to infiltrate the Republican Party in Maine and helped elect Ralph Owen Brewster governor in 1924.

Things are different today. Although French Mainers are still a minority—11.5 percent of the population report French ancestry—the days of conflict are over. In recent decades, the pine-tree state has become more diverse, reflecting immigration and migration patterns across the United States. The groups with the fastest growing populations now are Blacks/Africans and Latinos.

A good case study of the integration of immigrants is what’s happening in Lewiston with the settling of refugees from Somali, beginning in 2001. Although there was considerable friction between residents and African immigrants, relations have improved. Fleeing civil war, the Somalis found a haven and jobs in Lewiston. Paying rent and rehabbing old property, they also started small businesses. A vacant downtown area is now lined with shops, restaurants and markets. And they enrolled their children in public schools. In 2015 Somali high school students helped Lewiston win its first soccer state championship. Two more championships followed.

Biddeford is another city that has welcomed immigrants. Last week Mayor Liam LaFountain (of French-Canadian ancestry) joined residents in mourning the killing of Johan Sebastian Guerrero, 25, an immigrant from Colombia. Authorized to work in the United States, Johan was driving to work when he was stopped by ICE agents and shot. His 3-year-old daughter was in the back seat.

A century ago, Biddeford residents stood up to the Ku Klux Klan. Now, like communities across America, they are suffering the ravages of ICE. On Tuesday at a packed city council meeting, Mayor LaFountain demanded justice and accountability for Guerrero and his family.

ICE agents arrest a women during “Operation Catch of the Day” in Maine. MSN Photo.

“We are here because Johan was a member of this community, our community,” he said. “When one of us is taken like this, we do not look away. We do not stay quiet.”

LaFontain told immigrants in the city that “you belong here. You are part of who Biddeford is.”

The mayor also called for “humane immigration reform.” For a country reeling from the government’s mass deportation campaign, such reform is long overdue. It’s the only thing that will make us and our neighbors safe.

1936 & 2026–What will we remember?

The black-and-white photos are eerily compelling. A giant airship, the Hindenburg, hovers above the stadium. In a second one, Adolf Hitler and his entourage pass through the Brandenburg Gate.. The Führer is standing in an open Mercedez Benz. A third shows him arriving in the massive Olympic stadium as 100,000 Germans raise their arms in Nazi salute.

We remember the 1936 Olympics as a pivotal event, showcasing the glory and the infamy of the Third Reich. It took place three years after Adolf Hitler came to power and three years before Germany invaded Poland and World War II began. I think of these games with all their ceremony as I watch the final games of the World Cup, hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada.

When the Olympics opened in 1936, anyone who was paying attention knew of Germany’s persecution of Jews, Roma and others. As early as 1933, the Nazis had instituted an Aryan-only policy in all athletic organizations. Jews were excluded from sports facilities and associations. Other actions were more sinister.

In April of ’33, the government barred Jews from holding civil service, university, and state positions. That same month it instigated boycotts of Jewish businesses and shops. In May, across the street from the University of Berlin, mobs burned over 20,000 books. That spring, the Nazis opened the first of 23 main concentration camps near Dachau.

In the next two years Hitler pushed through a series of “Nuremburg Laws,” stripping Jews of their citizenship and prohibiting intermarriage. Germany also began compulsory sterilization of the “unfit,” mentally and physically disabled persons in nine categories. Euthanasia would come later.

But in the summer of 1936, in preparation for the Olympic games, the Nazi government put on a kinder face for the world. Antisemitic signs and posters were taken down and government pronouncements muted. To show its racial tolerance, Germany included in its Olympic team of 433 athletes one Jew, the star fencer, Helene Mayer, whose father was Jewish.

Considered a triumph of propaganda, the 1936 Olympics showcased Germany as a respectable and welcoming member of the international community, a nation built by hard work, family values and patriotism.

What most Americans remember about the Berlin games, however, was the brilliance of Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals, defying Hitler’s racial ideology. With his stunning victories, Owens became an international hero, with little thought to the racial prejudice he and other African Americans faced back home.

There were 359 athletes in the American team, including 18 African Americans and two Jews. The Jews were Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller, both talented sprinters. Controversy would later erupt when it was learned that on the day of the 4×100-meter relay, for which they had trained, they were pulled from the race, many believe, to spare Hitler further embarrassment.

Despite the success of the Americans, the Germans won the lion’s share of Olympic medals, 38 gold and 101 total, bolstering the Nazis’ claims of Aryan superiority.

As we watch the finals of the World Cup on Sunday in New York, we close one of the most successful international sports events of our time. Sixteen cities in three North American countries have hosted 102 games, rich in ceremony and bonhomie. The 46 teams came from five continents, thrilling fans and spectators with their passion, pride and skills on the pitch.

I’m wondering, though, how we will look back on the 2026 World Cup, and particularly, our country and what was going on out of sight. In writing this, I am not saying things in America are the same as in Germany in 1936. They are not. But there are similarities.

While athletes from around the world have been chasing soccer balls, the government has been chasing immigrants in what it promised would be the largest mass deportation project in American history. The slogan for ramped up enforcement in Maine was titled “Catch of the Day.” Arresting thousands a day in streets and job sites around the country, the government is holding some 70,000 men, women and children in 212 detention centers, where they await deportation. Thousands more are being flown every day to countries they had fled or other unsafe destinations.

Fathers and mothers have been taken from children. Wage-earners arrested have left families stranded. Men and women have been shot and killed, leaving their blood in the streets.

Targeting not only those without documentation, but 1.3 million here legally under the Temporary Protected Status, the government has in effect instituted ethnic cleansing, considered a crime against humanity. Most of those arrested are black or brown.

Before mass deportation began, the President and others engaged in persistent slander of people from Haiti, Africa and Latin America. Is this not reminiscent of the Nazis’ decades-long efforts to dehumanize Jews, necessary before action can be taken against them? Necessary before “the final solution”?

Years from now, we will recall the glorious World Cup games of 2026, a time when athletes and fans from around the world joined us, competed against us and celebrated with us. Yet so much has been going on behind the curtain.

What will we remember?

Photos from the National Archives

Lessons from the Pitch

I didn’t grow up with soccer. The only time I played was in a pasture in Austria, where I was a student. The school, Seminar Schloss Bogenhofen, was in the countryside near the town of Braunau, infamous for being the birthplace of Hitler.

One of only a few American students, I was encouraged to join my Austrian classmates in a pick-up game of Fussball. On the field, I quickly embarrassed myself with my clumsy moves. I also kept a lookout for cow pies.

Fast forward to Stoneham in the 1980s and my wife and I are standing with other parents on the sidelines at the soccer field off Broadway. Our 10-year-old son has just received a pass and punched it into the goal.

Although he would later abandon soccer for basketball, we gradually developed an interest in “the beautiful game.” Not yet serious fans, we nevertheless enjoyed World Cup and Olympic contests, especially the successes of the USA Women’s team.

This year, with World Cup games coming to Boston, we’ve spent way too much time watching matches on TV. We’ve cheered not only for our country, which showed great talent before losing to Belgium, but for various teams from around the world.

In picking which teams to cheer for, besides USA, I follow two principles. The first is, I like the underdogs. Who doesn’t like an upset? Or a herculean effort by a low-ranked team, like Cape Verde, who pushed Argentina to the limit before bowing out in the round of 16.

The second is, I like teams from places I’ve been, or have friends and family members living there. For this reason, and also because they were such fun to have in Boston, we cheered loudly for Scotland.

For similar reasons, I cheered for Germany because I have cousins there. I cheered for African teams because I was born in Tanzania. I cheered for Portugal because of our neighbors, who came from Portugal. I cheered for Mexico because we once took a train to Mexico City. I cheered for Brazil because we have so many Brazilians among us. And I cheered for Canada because, well, how can we not?

Having the World Cup in North America allows us to see some of the best players in the world. Like Messi, Ronaldo and Mbappé. Erling Haaland and Harry Cane aren’t bad either. And it brings hordes of fans into our cities, stadiums, bars and streets. In the faces of fans from around the world we see the same spectrum of emotions as those we feel—boisterous displays of joy and pride, bouts of anxiety and the agony of defeat.

We also learn about their countries and culture. Googling during water breaks, I find out that Cape Verde has a tiny population of only half a million, or that Uruguay is in the southern cone of South America east of Argentina and south of Brazil. Its name comes from the river Uruguay, which means “bird river.”

Watching the World Cup, I realize that the world we are seeing is richly diverse and abundant in cross-border bonhomie. In many ways, it reflects the demographic landscape that is already here. A nation of immigrants, we revel in the reunion of cultures from around the world.

I also realize, sadly, that this is a world our President and his lieutenants despise. It’s not just his America First doctrine and his disdain for other nations and cultures. Or his contempt for “shithole countries,” and his slanderous rants against Haitians, Mexicans and Somalians. It’s his open espousal of white nationalism and his attempt to rewrite American history.

It’s also his attempt to purge America of its black and brown immigrants. Even as I sit on my couch enjoying a World Cup match, I know that in 212 detention centers around the United States, some 70,000 immigrants are awaiting deportation. Thousands more are being arrested each day. They are in essence no different from the players we see on the pitch, or the fans that follow them. They are no different from us.

As we watch the semi-finals and championship game—and as we celebrate our 250^th Birthday—this World Cup has something to teach us. Like the inspiring photographs of the earth taken from the recent moon voyage, the World Cup should convince us that we are, in truth, one world. It’s time we start acting like it.

What Happens There Matters Here

Sunday morning Becky and I walked through heavy rain to a tent set up just outside Delaney Hall, an ICE detention prison holding over a 1,000 men and women in Newark, NJ. We had driven over from our daughter’s home in a Newark suburb. She had arrived earlier, joining other volunteers to set up coffee and food along with clothing, diapers and toys for families hoping to visit their loved one inside.

“Come to the Tent” in Spanish is posted by volunteers providing support to families of detainees at the Delaney Hall Detention Center.

Situated off the turnpike in New Jersey among huge gas tanks, warehouses, depots and a state prison, Delaney Hall has been the flashpoint for protests of its inhumane treatment of inmates. On Friday, around 300 detainees began a weekend hunger and labor strike and called on Gov. Mikie Sherrill to visit Delaney Hall, a private, for-profit facility, and address their complaints.

The day before, Senator Andy Kim (Dem-NJ) had visited Delaney Hall and met with inmates and advocates. Voicing his support for the detainees, he wrote this on his Facebook page:

I rushed to ICE detention center Delaney Hall yesterday when I heard detainees began a hunger strike. Here’s what I saw:

An 18 yr-old high-school student crying and saying she just wanted to graduate senior year;

A pregnant woman unable to get full OBGYN medical support;

A woman who had a miscarriage in the detention facility and left to manage all on her own;

A mom not allowed to spend more that a few minutes with 4-month-old baby;

A husband of an American-citizen wife and kid;

A carton with the milk inside congealed solid (expiration date is tomorrow); [there were also complaints of worms in the food.]

A man there for nearly a year with no movement in his legal efforts;

A document showing next Tuesday’s court docket showing 74 cases before one judge in one day (averages about 5 minutes a case);

A man telling me ICE is trying to deport him to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there is an active Ebola outbreak (he’s from South America originally);

Numerous people who were arrested at scheduled interviews for Green Cards (trying to follow the formal process);

A family unable to find out what hospital their family was sent to (ICE said they cannot give any medical updates to families of hospitalized detainees);

The Statue of Liberty as I left the facility to drive home. [You can see the Statue from Liberty State Park in Jersey City, not far from Delaney Hall.]

In another column, I’ll write more about what happens at Delaney Hall, and in the tent where volunteers provide support to families of detainees. Because what happens there, even if it’s not on the 6 o’clock evening news, must matter to us.

Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark, NJ

EC 101 or How to Make Ethnic Cleansing Work for You

Welcome to EC 101. We hope you will find this course helpful to you in the challenging days ahead.

Intro: Ethnic Cleansing is a useful tool for removing people from your country or community. The beauty of it is, you can use it on the basis of several factors. Race is just one. It also works well with religion, language or politics.

Background: Over the years, EC has been used successfully by many countries and societies to rid themselves of unwanted elements. There are many examples. China, Sudan, Serbia and Rwanda. And of course, Nazi Germany, the country that took EC to its highest level.

In this course you will learn how to put in place the building blocks of a successful EC campaign. But remember. Each step is important if you are to achieve your goals.

Step One: The first step is to identify your target population. Consider the fears and prejudices within your own group. Who don’t you like? Who do you resent? Who are you afraid of? This will lead you to target people who don’t look or speak like you.

Your targets can be a racial group, like Blacks or Asians, or a national group, like Mexicans or Somalis. Or religious groups, like Jews or Muslims. If you’re trying to maintain dominance of a specific demographic, for example, white Christians, any or all of the above can become targets. You can also identify cultural subsets you may wish to rid society of, like gays or transsexuals.

A good place to start is with immigrants. Because they often have a different skin color, wear strange clothing or speak a different language, they will meet most of your criteria for EC.

Step Two: Begin a wide-scale campaign of verbal abuse and dehumanization. This will take time, so it’s important to start early. For example, Adolf Hitler began slandering Jews and calling for their removal as early as 1919. And our president didn’t just suddenly start trashing immigrants. As early as 2015 he was calling Mexicans criminals and rapists. Over time he added to his vocabulary, calling them snakes, blood polluting, and garbage. Descriptions of weird behavior are also effective, like accusing Haitians of eating cats and dogs.

At the same time, it will be helpful to identify with the dominant culture and religion. Tactics might include showing up at religious conferences and prayer breakfasts. Find an opportunity to hold up a Bible and stress your support for posting the Ten Commandments in schools.

Step Three: Marshall all economic and political resources. For this you will need the installation of patriots at all levels of government, from Town Hall to the Supreme Court. Once this has been achieved, you can obtain the legislative, judicial and financial support you will need.

Step Four: Preparation—before you launch your campaign, you must put in place adequate infrastructure for operations, detention and deportation. This takes years to put in place, and involves major construction projects and hiring of loyal personnel. It also will require specific working agreements with private contractors in incarceration and transportation.

You will also need agreements with other countries, who will receive and house your EC deportees. Warning: some countries will want nothing to do with this. Others, like El Salvador, will gladly accept and imprison your deportees if compensated.

Finally, set high goals. Note, for example, the recent goals set by the Department of Homeland Security of arresting 3,000 persons a day.

Step Five: The Launch–It’s important when launching your campaign to develop effective marketing tools. Coming up with catchy names and phrases that can help sell your EC product. Recent examples include the naming of the Florida detention center ‘Alligator Alcatraz,” and the ICE surge into Maine as “Catch of the Day.” Another is the staging of Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem in front of tattooed criminals in cages at El Salvador’s infamous CECOT prison.

Implementation: Now that everything is in place, launch your EC campaign. You now have power. Use it. The worst thing you can do is to appear weak or confused. If you must use violence—know that at the highest level of government, your leaders will back you.

When making arrests, you may need to separate parents from children, or children from parents. Don’t let your feelings get it the way. Focus on the larger good you are doing for your country.

Caution: At some point you may come into conflict with people like you, that is, white Americans, who try to deter or distract you from doing your job. Sadly, they have been indoctrinated by radical, leftist propaganda. As difficult as it is, you must treat them as the domestic terrorists they are.

A useful tip: It’s important when conducting your EC campaign to send signals to the dominant group that you are not targeting them. One way is to welcome white immigrants from South Africa or Northern Europe. This makes it clear that you are not opposed to all immigrants, only those with darker skins.

A final word: Throughout your Ethnic Cleansing campaign, keep your eyes on the prize. Make America Great Again by making America White Again. Conducting a successful EC campaign will require your perseverance and undying loyalty.

A Ballad for our Time, Too

Woodie Guthrie wrote the lyrics. Martin Hoffman set them to music. Since then, it’s been sung by Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Bruce Springsteen, Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie.

It’s a ballad called “Deportees” and it tells of an airplane crash in California’s Los Gatos Canyon. On board were 28 migrant farm workers from Mexico.

The lyrics are as searing now as in 1848 when Guthrie wrote them:

The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills,
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says, “They are just deportees.”

Guthrie wrote the ballad one night after news reports listed the names of the pilots, attendant and immigration guard lost in the crash, but referred to the farm workers only as “deportees.” After the braceros’ bodies were recovered, they were buried in a mass grave without names, marked “Mexican Nationals.”

The roundup of the Los Gatos laborers was just one episode in several government campaigns to remove Mexicans and those with Mexican ancestry. Mass deportation began in 1930 and continued through the Great Depression. Then in 1954, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) brought out “Operation Wetback.” Under this federal program, officials used strong-arm tactics to arrest tens of thousands of immigrants across the country. Caught up in the raids were farm and factory workers, including American citizens.

In July of 1955, several thousand deportees were found wandering the streets of Mexicali, a desert town bordering California. Yanked from their jobs and families, they had simply been dumped across the border. According to one account, 88 died of heat exposure in the 112 degree heat.

In Texas, thousands of deportees were crammed onto boats bound for Mexican ports. Testimony before a Congressional committee described conditions akin to those on slave ships. Other immigrants were packed into trucks. By the end of Operation Wetback, the INS claimed it had “repatriated” 1.3 million Mexicans.

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won’t have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be “deportees.”

Accompanying the mass deportations were media depictions of Mexicans as dirty, disease-bearing and lazy. News coverage focused on border and immigration officials conducting raids.

Only in time did most Americans come to see this as something shameful. In a 2012 ceremony in Los Angeles, Governor Jerry Brown and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa formally apologized for California’s role in the deportations.

On Labor Day in 2013, United Farm Worker President Arturo Rodriguez joined hundreds gathered at the Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno, California, to memorialize the 28 farm workers killed in Los Gatos Canyon. They were 25 men and three women. This time, inscribed in the headstone, was each person’s name.

Now, deportation planes are again in the sky. Planes to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Planes to India and Rwanda. Planes to Eswatini, a tiny country in southern Africa.

Through October 2025, the Department of Homeland Security operated 1,701 deportation flights to 77 countries. And it recently bought six Boeing 737s, expanding capacity.

Meanwhile, 66,000 men, women and children await deportation in detention centers. Arrested, often with brutal force, they were tracked down in streets, courthouses, parking lots, fields and construction sites.

Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
Our work contracts out and we have to move on.
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.

Compared to programs of the past, Donald Trump’s campaign is Operation Wetback on steroids. The president wants 3,000 arrests a day, or one million by the end of his first year in office. Each day, it seems, he expands his list of targets, Somalis, Haitians, Venezuelans, Afghans. What they have in common is their darker shades of skin.

As I listen to Woodie Guthrie’s song, I think of my children and grandchildren. I wonder, what song will they sing in years to come? Who will write the words, and who will remember the names?

Will there be, one day in the future, a public apology, a ceremonial mea culpa for the cruelty, the harm inflicted on so many? If so, what song will we then sing.

She loves us, she loves us not

She loves us, she loves us not. She loves us, she loves us not. So the petals of the daisy tell the story of America’s love-hate relationship with her immigrant people—homesteaders and refugees, migrants and asylum seekers, those fleeing poverty, war, persecution and famine.

President Donald Trump, aide Stephen Miller, DHS’s Kristi Noem, and ICE tsar Tom Holman are not the first ones in our nation’s history to tilt America against immigrants. Anti-immigrant sentiment has been fanned into flames on and off from our earliest days. Posing as populists, politicians have railed against foreigners “poisoning the blood of our country,” as Trump put it in during his presidential campaign.

Since the first Europeans arrived without visas, and Africans arrived in chains, America has opened doors to newcomers, then shut them, opened, then shut them again. In the 19^th century, we needed workers for our factories and farmers for our prairies. We needed merchants and tradesmen, engineers and inventors. It helped if you were Protestant and white. It wasn’t good if you were Chinese or Irish or Mexican.

Although doors for a while swung open to “your tired, your hungry, your masses yearning to breathe free,” by the 1920s they had all but closed again. Laws approved by Congress in 1917 and 1921 slowed immigration to a trickle, setting quotas based on national origin. These laws and anti-Semitic sentiment kept out thousands of Jews attempting to flee Nazi Germany. Included among them were 907 passengers–men, women and children–aboard the M.S. St. Louis. Refused permission to dock in Miami, the ship turned back to Europe. Some 250 perished in concentration camps.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 preserved a restrictive quota system favoring Europeans, but made an important change. The bill abolished the “alien ineligible to citizenship” category applied to Asians, although it limited the number of those who could qualify.

Deciding who to allow in America is one thing. What to do with those already in is another. The answer has often been harsh. For example, the Chinese and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. For example, the braceros invited in to plant and harvest our crops.

In 1954, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) brought out “Operation Wetback.” Under this federal program, officials used military-like tactics to arrest tens of thousands of immigrants across the country. Caught up in the raids were farm and factory workers, including some American citizens. Deemed unwelcome, they were flown, trucked or shipped across the border.

I was thinking of all this as I sat in a café in Woburn the other night, listening to the stories of three immigrants. From Nicaragua, Turkey and India, they shared stories of their arrival and the challenges and obstacles they faced. As they pursue remarkable careers in science, health care and technology, they are reaching out to others, mentoring and building community.

Above all, they are sharing their love for America. She loves me. She loves me not.

Like many Americans, I am pained by the policies and actions of our government, by the slamming of doors to thousands of refugees who were already been vetted for resettlement. By the ending of legal protections for thousands fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries. By the brutal and cruel tactics of ICE agents as they take parents from children and children from families.

The simple truth is, we need immigrants. We need them, not only for economic reasons, to bring young life to an aging demographic, but for their love ethic.

It’s time to love our immigrants again.

They Love America, but …

They love America, but America doesn’t love them back. “They” are the millions of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers facing deportation.

Built by immigrants, America has now turned its back on them, thanks to Donald Trump and his MAGA followers, who for decades have demeaned and dehumanized them, especially those with skin darker than theirs.

Ironically, many immigrants and asylum seekers have come here legally, through government programs granting them the chance to live here in safety. Others, like Marcelo Gomes da Silva, a Milford high school student taken by ICE while on his way to volleyball practice, have grown up among us and know no other life.

Marcelo, who came to the United States from Brazil when he was six, is an honors student. A junior, he plays in the band and would have performed at Sunday’s graduation. According to a friend, he was shackled feet and hands and shoved into a holding cell with 25 older men.

Here’s what’s happening. Trump wants Homeland Security and ICE to roundup 3,000 “illegal” immigrants a day. They haven’t been meeting their quota, though they’ve tried. To make it easier to find bodies to deport, Trump changed the rules. Now a half million immigrants—families, parents and children who were here legally—have had the rug, no, the ground, pulled out from under them.

Fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries, they were granted “humanitarian parole” or “temporary protected status.” They were fingerprinted and documented. By revoking these programs, Trump has made them easy to find.

ICE has also found other easy targets, immigrants who show up at courthouses for hearings. They’ve been nabbed in hallways and stairwells. A judge was arrested and accused of helping one immigrant leave by a back door.

Masked ICE agents are raiding factories and farms, bodegas and restaurants. They are grabbing people off the streets, taking mothers and fathers from children and children from siblings. The word has gone out. No place is safe, including churches, hospitals and schools.

All this is going on while the Trump administration is calling on Americans to have more babies to counter the declining birth rate. He wants more babies, more young families, yet the clear message is that he wants white families, not black or brown. How else to explain the counter-intuitive break-up and deportation of families already here–those who want nothing more than to live in a safe and free country. Those who love America, even if America doesn’t love them back.

If ICE can meet its 3,000 per day quote, over a million of our neighbors will have been arrested and deported this year, one big step towards the deportation of the 15 to 20 million Trump has threatened.

To millions of Americans, sadly, that is a good thing. They voted for someone to do just that. To millions more, however, it is a travesty. It goes against everything they believe in and stand for.

The largest segment of Americans who voted for Trump in 2024 were Christians, especially white Christians. They put Trump in office. They could be the ones, now, to stop him. Leaving their pews, they could pick up the phone, march in the streets, demand an end to the cruelty, whether to our immigrant neighbors, or to the millions of poor who will lose their health insurance if his budget goes through.

Last Friday in an interfaith rally, some 70 clergy did just that. Marching from the Lexington Green to the Boston Common, they protested the cruel treatment of immigrants and international students.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D. C., a group of ministers praying in the Rotunda of the Capitol were cuffed with zip-ties and taken out, arrested for protesting against cuts to Medicaid and the harm it would cause millions. They were led by the Rev. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign.

These faith leaders, like the prophets of old, are calling us to action. It’s time we pay attention.

Protect the Babies We Have

Let’s see if I get this right. The Trump administration wants us to have more babies. What with Covid and a declining birth rate, we need more young people to offset those of us with gray hair. We need them to replenish our communities and pay our bills. Trump recently talked of giving a bonus of $5,000 to each new mother.

At the same time his administration is deporting mothers, fathers, and, yes, babies. He is rounding up immigrants, including those who are paying taxes and contributing to Social Security and Medicare. He is breaking up families.

In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, ICE recently took a mother away from her 1-year-old girl and deported her to Cuba, separating them indefinitely. ICE also deported three children ages 2, 4 and 7 along with their mothers to Honduras. The children are U.S. citizens. The 4-year old has a rare form of cancer.

It’s become clear that Trump’s pro-baby, pro-family approach is meant for one type of family, one type of baby–white families and white babies. And that all this talk about encouraging women to give birth and to stay at home to raise their children is rooted in white nationalist ideology.

What is white nationalism? White nationalism is “advocacy of or support for the perceived political interests of the white population within a particular country, especially to the exclusion or detriment of other racial and ethnic groups.”

White nationalism, along with white supremacy, has always been around. It was behind the enslavement of millions of African Americans. It was behind the Chinese Exclusion Act. It was behind the “separate but equal” Supreme Court decision that affirmed racial apartheid in Southern states. It was given new energy with the re-election of Donald Trump.

Consider the makeup of Trump’s cabinet and advisors. Consider his history of demeaning comments and slurs. Consider the attacks on DEI—diversity, equity and inclusion—and the government’s punitive policies directed towards racial and ethnic minorities. Consider Trump’s revoking of “temporary protected status” for asylum seekers from Haiti and Venezuela.

Consider his shutting down of our refugee resettlement program, stranding thousands of already approved refugees from Africa and the Middle East. At the same time, he has put out the welcome mat for Afrikaners in South Africa, whom he claims are victims of “white genocide.”

Last week 59 white South African “refugees” arrived at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D. C. A photo of them shows young families holding babies in their arms. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau told them: “We’re excited to welcome you here to our country where we think you will bloom.”

All this, while Trump denies a haven to black and brown families fleeing famine, war and persecution.

So what do we do about it? First, we need a stop to the deportations of non-violent immigrants—full stop—and the affording of due process to all. And we need a resumption of our long-standing refugee-resettlement program, applied fairly to everyone.

Second, we need immigration reform. For too many decades, we have let Congress off the hook. The last significant immigration reform came during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, when millions of immigrants were granted pathways to citizenship. The failure of Congress and past administrations to legislate common-sense reform has victimized millions of our neighbors, who want nothing more than to build lives for their families in a safe and free country.

As for the Administration’s push to have more babies, I say let’s protect the babies we have, and their parents and siblings–refugees, asylum seekers, DACA enrollees, immigrants. They are part of our communities. We need them. Diverse, multi-cultural, hardworking, creative, they, with us, can build an American future based not on white-nationalist ideology, but on equal opportunity for all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender or religion. A future aligned with our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

Let’s hold the babies we have.