Right now, in three separate churches in our area, there are individuals living there who are seeking sanctuary from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and deportation (“Churches’ commitment to humanity,” April 14).
These are people who have been here many years, who have spouses and children, most of whom are American citizens. These people are not criminals. They are victims of Donald Trump’s war on immigrants.
This is shameful and despicable. I cannot remember a time like this in all of my 72 years. I ask myself, “What’s happened to my country?”
My grandparents came her from Russia in the early 20th century, and I am grateful for it. They did not have to suffer the horrors of two world wars, pogroms and the Holocaust.
But now we seem to be heading in a direction that I find truly horrible. This is a country of immigrants. Unless you are Native American, your family all came here from other places to find a better life in America.
And that is what most undocumented immigrants are seeking. They flee the horrors of gang violence, possible rape and abject poverty. Much of the gang violence is over drug turf wars, and most of those drugs end up in the United States to feed our unending appetite for illegal drugs.
The U.S. has a long history of interference in other countries’ affairs, especially in Central and Latin America, where most of these “illegals” come from. Many of our actions and exploitations in these countries have made life harder for these folks, so they come here to find a better life for themselves and their children.
And now what do we do? We treat them like criminals. We break up families through deportations. We force otherwise law-abiding persons to hide out in churches, disrupting their lives and putting at risk the lives of their spouses and children, as the family bread-winner is now unable to work, but must hole up in a church.
I applaud these three church communities for their willingness to stand up to tyranny. And I applaud Amherst and Northampton for their stand to support these efforts through sanctuary community policies.
But, as for Mayor Domenic Sarno of Springfield who wants to punish the church in Springfield, I say “Shame on you.”
Dan Daniels
South Hadley