Dear Editor,
Before you read this, understand that all of us, for the most part, are born of immigrants who made this country what it is and still do. Many may not be “white-skinned” or have the perfect Anglo-Saxon “look,” but we are still part of that backbone of America.
How we have allowed ICE agents to grow, intimidate, and even kill innocents without retribution is beyond what I hope is everyone’s belief. I am, and most of you are, comfortable in our little cocoons. However, the immigrants who have done their duty by enrolling and following “all the rules” are being cast aside and physically mistreated, separated from their families, and returned to unknown violence without the protections and money to survive. People with green cards, asylum, and anonymity are no longer safe. What Trump has grown is a fascist regime. ICE has been given the green light to “engage.”
An article appeared Friday, Aug. 28, about a federal judge ordering the Trump administration to bring back a Nigerian man it secretly deported despite a court order protecting him from return to Nigeria. According to court records, Etinosa Osahon was deported through Ghana after being detained by immigration authorities. The court later ordered the government to explain his current location and what steps it was taking to facilitate his return to the United States.
Etinosa Osahon, a 49-year-old green card holder who had lived in the United States since 2002, had been granted deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture after immigration judges found that he had been tortured twice by Nigerian officials over his former membership in the extremist group Boko Haram, including being hung from the ceiling and forced to stare at the sun. For 14 years, he complied with every ICE check-in requirement without incident, married a U.S. citizen and raised three American children.
In May, ICE emailed Osahon telling him to report for what officials described as a routine medical update. Once he arrived, agents detained him, according to court filings. Despite his protected status, ICE ultimately removed him to Ghana. When Ghanaian officials tried to send him toward Nigeria, he refused, and he eventually ended up in Togo. The federal court found sufficient grounds to issue a temporary restraining order barring the government from taking further action to facilitate his removal or transfer to Nigeria. The judge also ordered the government to preserve records and explain what steps it was taking to facilitate Osahon’s return to the United States.
Put yourself in their shoes, and then perhaps you can offer some compassion toward hardworking immigrants. The “desirables” far outnumber what are considered “undesirables,” and frankly, if the records ever become public, we’ll no doubt learn there are more “undesirables” working for ICE than there are among the immigrants they’re arresting.
Now, efforts have been escalated to build more holding tanks and barriers, and even to build a wall throughout protected lands. We have an incoherent, misogynistic man-child in the highest level of office. ICE is now targeting a count of 2,000 immigrants per day, and today they showed their “accomplishments.” I am sickened.
We have reached the bowels of society as a whole when we allow this xenophobia to continue. My hope, and my only hope, is that in November people will take a stand and say, “NO MORE.”
Peggy Scherman, Greensboro