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Donald Trump and a legion of opportunistic legislators and elected officials, both local and national, have centered their careers on promoting the myth of the dangerous undocumented immigrants threatening Americans. Bristol County and surrounding cities and towns in Rhode Island have been bombarded with this unsupported allegation for many years despite evidence to the contrary.
Unfortunately, the myth lives on at the highest levels of government and has been a rallying cry to the millions of voters who believe this stereotype and have made it their major incentive for supporting politicians who have consistently acted against their best interest on many issues.
Massachusetts and Rhode Island have huge immigrant populations from continental Portugal, the Azores and Cape Verde Islands. Anyone who has lived or spent significant time in these communities knows the reality that the majority of felonies, especially murder, are committed by American born or legally naturalized citizens, not undocumented immigrants.
This most recent murderous attack at Brown University and upon the MIT professor was presumably committed by a Portuguese immigrant, here with a green card, with personal, rather than political, motivations. Hopefully, this administration will not now place Portugal, or former colonies, on the list of banned travel and immigration restrictions.
Crime is undeniably proportionally higher in the United States than any other industrialized country, and random mass murders more frequent as well. These so-called domestic terrorist attacks are occurring with frightening regularity. And it has been accurately reported that, except for one situation, all these attacks have been committed by American born or naturalized citizens.
It must be remembered that Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, was American born, as were so many of the succeeding mass murderers.
Hopefully there will not be a rush to judgment and condemnation of Portuguese immigrants, adding them to the list of the beleaguered and falsely vilified members of our society.
Betty Ussach is a Dartmouth resident.
Everyone is welcome to their opinion but come on, what an exaggeration. Articles like this try to create these myths. There are lunatics in all nationalities and the actions of one person does not paint the picture for any group of people. Time to stop this senseless redirect.
When I go to the Housing Authority looking for low cost housing for a relative who is an elderly widow and I’m told that the waiting list is 6 years long; when their is overcrowding in public classrooms and difficulties in classrooms because many can not speak English; when the ER is full, is that not threatening? I understand that children can not be put out on the street but especially the last Federal Administration has failed the American people. This is a correction from the abuse of the Open Border policy which caused much harm in many ways. Oh and there are 350+ legal citizens and 20 +/- illegals so I would expect the majority of crime to be caused by the legal but that changes nothing. I’m the son of a Portuguese mother and have worked with many outstanding Portuguese workmen but unvetted illegal immigration is bad.
What is truly alarming is the indiscriminate way in which people are swept up in these ICE raids. People with legal rights to be here as well as citizens have been detained without due process . Most have no criminal history and many have been treated inhumanely in detention centers far away from family and legal counsel. Our congressional leaders have the legal right to visit these detention centers but have usually been denied access or had access made more difficult for them.
Earlier this year, Venezuelan residents in the US were sent out of the country to the Cecot Prison in El Salvador. A 60 Minutes report about how they were treated was supposed to air on Sunday, December 22, but was pulled at the last minute. This administration has been complaining publicly about the 60 Minutes program, and has been suing CBS and other media companies that air uncomplimentary reports about it. Media companies need government approval for their mergers. In my opinion, CBS, once again, gave in to government pressure and pulled the news segment in which detainees described how they were treated at Cecot prison. The public has a right to know what our country is doing in our name.
Next year, this administration has said it intends to step up ICE detention and deportation activities. It is entirely possible that attempts to deploy troops in our cities will continue. Attempts at denying birthright citizenship are already being debated in our courts and due to be decided by our Supreme Court. People who are born here of parents who came here illegally should be paying attention to this. We all know people in our city from other countries who work, pay taxes and are law abiding. Most of the people being detained are like them, and are not the criminals this administration has promised to detain.
Blah, Blah, Blah, if you come here illegally, by land, by sea, by air, 100% you should be deported, enough is enough, we should be spending our tax dollars on American citizens.
Another “indiscriminate” arrest. This is a weekly event in our area. And the beat goes on:
“According to ICE Boston, last Friday, they arrested Antony Araujo, a criminal alien from Brazil in Fall River, Mass.
ICE Boston states that Araujo, who has been arrested in Fall River previously, has a criminal history that includes convictions for rape of a child, indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, and possession of child pornography.”
The arrest and detainment of Mr. Araujo is certainly justified. Unfortunately, the wide net being cast by ICE and US Border Patrol agents conducting raids is sweeping up too many people who have not committed any crimes and are also legally in the US, including citizens.
Even Justice Kavanaugh has commented on this in a footnote to the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling about deploying the National Guard in Illinois. Here is the excerpt about Kavanaugh’s comments:
“In his support for that decision, Kavanaugh wrote that when those individuals legally in the U.S. are stopped and questioned, “the questioning in those circumstances is typically brief, and those individuals may promptly go free after making clear to immigration officers that they are U.S. citizens or otherwise legally in the U.S.” (Note: He is saying what SHOULD happen.)
“In his concurrence in Tuesday’s decision, Kavanaugh added a footnote saying: “The Fourth Amendment requires that immigration stops must be based on reasonable suspicion of illegal presence, stops must be brief, arrests must be based on probable cause, and officers must not employ excessive force. Moreover, the officers must not make interior immigration stops or arrests based on race or ethnicity.” (Again, he is saying what SHOULD happen.)
Kavanaugh is going on record about what he believes, but he is doing it an an almost anonymous way, in comments and a footnote to a US Supreme Court decision which most people will not see.
My source for this information is a daily newsletter I receive from Heather Cox Richardson called Letters from an American. She includes links to all her sources at the end of each newsletter. If I had to choose only one source of information on government and politics, it would be her newsletter.
Drop all the names, list all the fake news articles, and write all the essays and novels you want. After all is said and written, the only myth that is still trying to be created is that entering this country illegally is not a crime. If you’re here with no documentation or even worse fake documentation you deserve to be deported.