Lady Liberty should be shedding tears of bewilderment and despair at the inhumane and probably unconstitutional treatment of migrants under this Administration.
Rekah, again you have so clearly named the issues and the atrocities that innocent workers are being punished for against human rights. Your column should be reprinted in the New York Times, Washington Post, and all major newspapers across the country to inform the citizenship and rally protest and action against these inhumane and illegal punishments. We need more wake-up calls and have the pen to help!
Never in American history, has this depth of gross ineptitude, inexperience, arrogance, and incompetence been collectively empowered to commit atrocities of such an egregious nature. You’ve rightly described the incalculable damage being inflicted and the consequences from which, will and have , undoubtedly stained our country. Stains of dishonesty, deceit, corruption, false promises and blood, all committed by paper patriots, in the name of an unhinged, convicted criminal claiming to be an American messiah. Stains we can’t “Shout it Out” like the detergent, but deeper ones with lasting effects. Thanks, for what should be a continuous stream of daily reminders, Reka Basu. These aren’t nameless, passing bloody events; they’re real people, friends, relatives, service providers, coworkers, people you pass by, being killed , kidnapped, or incarcerated for deportation right in front of us. On our streets, in OUR cities. Tonight, tomorrow and the next day. Last week, this week. Next week.
We’re all immigrants too. When does the inhumanity break our hearts and silence to demand justice and insist they stop? To scream , Enough?! Everyone will pay a price to end this madness, everybody owns a piece, because we are all stakeholders here. Whether it’s a nationwide strike, surrounding government buildings, disrupting transportation infrastructure, peaceful assemblies around the homes and workplaces of the perpetrators, everyone will suffer in varying degrees with painful hardships. Sadly, this is the price we will have to pay. We must, or wait until the next knock on the door by a masked person in uniform, is ours.
Horrific that we have a governmental entity whose actions are identical to the Nazi Gestapo. In addition, it has been pointed out that there are many thousands of European, Australian, SE Asian, and even Russian immigrants who are here illegally yet no one is targeting them. Racism was also a central pillar of Nazi ideology. So very, very sad.
Rekha, your words should be held up and distributed far and wide. They are hard to read, as are so many describing our country, today. Our government is becoming the worst nightmare we can imagine. The cruelty and injustice seem to be the goal. People we have elected are spineless or colluding with glee. When I imagine I have seen the worst, they prove me wrong.
Thank you for your words, your courage and for keeping me focused on the horror we must fight to stop.
If the government can arrest and detain immigrants, it’s only a matter of time before they arrest citizens, perhaps for writing words like I’m writing now. We could be labelled as “contrary to US foreign policy or national interest.” A complicit Supreme Court and cowardly Republicans in Congress would do nothing to stop it. Americans need to understand this happened less than a century ago in civilized Europe. Many of us are already awake, but when will ENOUGH Americans wake up?
Right now the main tool of opposition to inhumane and unconstitutional apprehension of non-citizens w/o a visa is protests and demonstrations. The tension around this (and a dozen others) is the fodder for violence. As I’m watching, the federal district courts provide just decisions that are overturned at Supreme Court level.
As always, great reporting and brilliant writing, Rekha. Bravo! We would all do well to remember Hannah Arendt’s words, from one of her masterworks, Between Past and Future, whenever someone speaks of closing our doors to refugees and immigrants: “America is not simply a colonial country in need of immigrants to populate the land . . . For America the determining factor has always been the motto printed on every dollar bill: Novus Ordo Seclorum, A New Order of the World. The immigrants, the newcomers, are a guarantee to the country that it represents the new order.” America’s “magnificence” she continued, lies in the fact that “this new order did not shut itself off from the outside world…. Rather it… welcomed all the poor and enslaved of the earth.”
Thank you, Rekha. This whole cruel episode in our country is horrifying. The courts seem to be holding at the appellate level, but the Roberts Court has lost their soul. God help us.
This New York Post video of an ICE raid in NYC is frightening and angering. It’s more about a thuggish, violence inflicting unaccountable, hooligan gang racially profiling and body snatching their victims. Such inexcusable trauma is being wrought upon America. It should be tried in an international court as crimes against humanity. https://youtube.com/shorts/TfjBQrOleQ8?si=terLzfycn97YJEFm
Rekha, thank you for your voice. I am grateful for so many excellent writers, within the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative who speak truth to power in these fascist regime’s times. So many truly inept, corrupt, elitist, cruel, racially motivated people (e.g. Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Tom Homan, Brooke Rollins, et al.) within a woefully evil DJT administration. We are not only nabbing and detaining, incarcerating and killing innocent, hardworking, honest immigrants, we are forever tarnishing what our country used to stand for. I don’t have words to describe the horrors that are occurring in these ICE and DHS detention facilities. But what is happening on a daily basis is vile, shameful and abhorrent and should be investigated by The Hague as crimes against humanity just as equally shameful of the situation that Israel is instigating with its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. These are terrible times and every day we need to raise our First Amendment rights in protest to the pain, trauma and killing of people trying to follow the rules to work, contribute and form communities here. Grateful for your voice, Rekha.
Farm worker who died after California Ice raid was ‘hardworking and innocent’, family sayshttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/14/jaime-alanis-california-ice-raid-death?CMP=share_btn_url
“Attack on migrants” in your article’s title? You’re missing the word illegal. If you’re okay with allowing 10+ million aliens to break our laws, what laws would you condone that I and other Americans get to break with impunity?
Rekah, again you have so clearly named the issues and the atrocities that innocent workers are being punished for against human rights. Your column should be reprinted in the New York Times, Washington Post, and all major newspapers across the country to inform the citizenship and rally protest and action against these inhumane and illegal punishments. We need more wake-up calls and have the pen to help!
Thank you, Pat.
Beautifully said Rekha. My gift to my adult children this year was an ACLU membership for each of them. We
Need to fight back in every way we can. And yes the mainstream media
needs your voice and voices like yours. Thank you!
Thanks, Mia. Such a thoughtful and appropriate gift for your kids for these times.
Great idea.
Never in American history, has this depth of gross ineptitude, inexperience, arrogance, and incompetence been collectively empowered to commit atrocities of such an egregious nature. You’ve rightly described the incalculable damage being inflicted and the consequences from which, will and have , undoubtedly stained our country. Stains of dishonesty, deceit, corruption, false promises and blood, all committed by paper patriots, in the name of an unhinged, convicted criminal claiming to be an American messiah. Stains we can’t “Shout it Out” like the detergent, but deeper ones with lasting effects. Thanks, for what should be a continuous stream of daily reminders, Reka Basu. These aren’t nameless, passing bloody events; they’re real people, friends, relatives, service providers, coworkers, people you pass by, being killed , kidnapped, or incarcerated for deportation right in front of us. On our streets, in OUR cities. Tonight, tomorrow and the next day. Last week, this week. Next week.
We’re all immigrants too. When does the inhumanity break our hearts and silence to demand justice and insist they stop? To scream , Enough?! Everyone will pay a price to end this madness, everybody owns a piece, because we are all stakeholders here. Whether it’s a nationwide strike, surrounding government buildings, disrupting transportation infrastructure, peaceful assemblies around the homes and workplaces of the perpetrators, everyone will suffer in varying degrees with painful hardships. Sadly, this is the price we will have to pay. We must, or wait until the next knock on the door by a masked person in uniform, is ours.
Thanks for this heartfelt response and apt warning: "until the next knock on the door by a masked person in uniform, is ours."
Horrific that we have a governmental entity whose actions are identical to the Nazi Gestapo. In addition, it has been pointed out that there are many thousands of European, Australian, SE Asian, and even Russian immigrants who are here illegally yet no one is targeting them. Racism was also a central pillar of Nazi ideology. So very, very sad.
Thanks for sharing this, Joel. I'd love to see any links you could share to stories on those groups that are not being targeted.
Rekha, your words should be held up and distributed far and wide. They are hard to read, as are so many describing our country, today. Our government is becoming the worst nightmare we can imagine. The cruelty and injustice seem to be the goal. People we have elected are spineless or colluding with glee. When I imagine I have seen the worst, they prove me wrong.
Thank you for your words, your courage and for keeping me focused on the horror we must fight to stop.
And thank you, Virgina, for all the steps you take to push back against the horrors.
I'm waiting for a Tyson chicken raid in Arkansas...
“Liked” seems wrong but there is no anger button. Excellent reporting. Thanks for exposing this, Rekha.
Thank you, Lyle. I know what you mean: There should be buttons for indignation and outrage - especially in these times.
Well, the intent — great writing that exposes evil — remains intact.
If the government can arrest and detain immigrants, it’s only a matter of time before they arrest citizens, perhaps for writing words like I’m writing now. We could be labelled as “contrary to US foreign policy or national interest.” A complicit Supreme Court and cowardly Republicans in Congress would do nothing to stop it. Americans need to understand this happened less than a century ago in civilized Europe. Many of us are already awake, but when will ENOUGH Americans wake up?
Right now the main tool of opposition to inhumane and unconstitutional apprehension of non-citizens w/o a visa is protests and demonstrations. The tension around this (and a dozen others) is the fodder for violence. As I’m watching, the federal district courts provide just decisions that are overturned at Supreme Court level.
The torch held by the Statue of Liberty has been extinguished. I seek effective political action to take a stand in the face of these trespasses.
As always, great reporting and brilliant writing, Rekha. Bravo! We would all do well to remember Hannah Arendt’s words, from one of her masterworks, Between Past and Future, whenever someone speaks of closing our doors to refugees and immigrants: “America is not simply a colonial country in need of immigrants to populate the land . . . For America the determining factor has always been the motto printed on every dollar bill: Novus Ordo Seclorum, A New Order of the World. The immigrants, the newcomers, are a guarantee to the country that it represents the new order.” America’s “magnificence” she continued, lies in the fact that “this new order did not shut itself off from the outside world…. Rather it… welcomed all the poor and enslaved of the earth.”
Thank you, Rekha. This whole cruel episode in our country is horrifying. The courts seem to be holding at the appellate level, but the Roberts Court has lost their soul. God help us.
This New York Post video of an ICE raid in NYC is frightening and angering. It’s more about a thuggish, violence inflicting unaccountable, hooligan gang racially profiling and body snatching their victims. Such inexcusable trauma is being wrought upon America. It should be tried in an international court as crimes against humanity. https://youtube.com/shorts/TfjBQrOleQ8?si=terLzfycn97YJEFm
Rekha, thank you for your voice. I am grateful for so many excellent writers, within the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative who speak truth to power in these fascist regime’s times. So many truly inept, corrupt, elitist, cruel, racially motivated people (e.g. Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Tom Homan, Brooke Rollins, et al.) within a woefully evil DJT administration. We are not only nabbing and detaining, incarcerating and killing innocent, hardworking, honest immigrants, we are forever tarnishing what our country used to stand for. I don’t have words to describe the horrors that are occurring in these ICE and DHS detention facilities. But what is happening on a daily basis is vile, shameful and abhorrent and should be investigated by The Hague as crimes against humanity just as equally shameful of the situation that Israel is instigating with its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. These are terrible times and every day we need to raise our First Amendment rights in protest to the pain, trauma and killing of people trying to follow the rules to work, contribute and form communities here. Grateful for your voice, Rekha.
Farm worker who died after California Ice raid was ‘hardworking and innocent’, family sayshttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/14/jaime-alanis-california-ice-raid-death?CMP=share_btn_url
“Attack on migrants” in your article’s title? You’re missing the word illegal. If you’re okay with allowing 10+ million aliens to break our laws, what laws would you condone that I and other Americans get to break with impunity?