In case you are not paying attention, the immigration arrests have morphed into a kind of crude harvest machine seemingly lacking any legal ground and based on some other criteria than law. Is it race, color, accent? We have no idea. The New York Times reports arrests of people married to US citizens, people with no criminal history, people who have entered the US legally and were in legal claims for asylum and people with temporary legal status that the administration only aspires to erase from US demographics. Let us look at the foundation of this tragic problem: guilty until proven innocent.
What can you call this policing in a country like ours with laws and a Constitution like ours? Not even the Supreme Court has the authority to erase due process. Is the law of the land a suggestion or a law? Yes, densely worded arguments filled with circular reasoning coming around to nothing can make these crimes seem reasonable and delay the response until it is too late for the human beings being victimized, but I really think we all know better. We have released a machine programmed for arrests and it will run like this until Congress stops it. The people who work for this machine are evaluated, not on the basis of justice and law, but numbers alone. Whenever and where ever human beings are reduced to numbers, there will be a deterioration into criminal activity.
Urgent Plea for Good
The responsibility for what is going on in our communities belongs to the top of government and the people below. Our low level accountability is invested in our vote. Congress and the President are responsible for preserving and protecting the Constitution for the whole time they are in office. Anyone at that level who doesn’t go on record opposing the obvious will be held culpable by history in the future. There are innocent human beings currently being incarcerated without due process. They are not guilty until and if proven so. They are endowed with the natural human rights to be treated with respect and whose stories must be heard through due process before and if their freedom is taken. This is the American way and law. Let us remember who we are before this machine expands its jaws and takes us all away. These are not culture wars. What is going on now is about law and justice. Don’t take my word for it. Do you own due diligence. Who is the criminal here that history will most certainly hold accountable? Make sure it isn’t you. That would be good. What is not good here is the crime in not-so-secret progress.
The Good Decision 
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