From Charles Wellington
Monroe
To the Editor:
I would like to express my appreciation for the recent action taken by Mayor Douglas showing support for the undocumented persons in our community. This took courage for taking a strong stand. Our Hispanic neighbors give much to our community. They do difficult jobs that are otherwise hard to fill, they pay taxes for which they receive little in return and they support our local economy.
And yet, they are often vilified and referred to as “illegal aliens,” a pejorative term that is both demeaning and untrue. A non-citizen who is in this country without authorization is simply undocumented. He/she is not illegal. It is not a crime to be undocumented. Still, the word “illegal” is used constantly by the current administration to dehumanize and marginalize a group of people. This has led to a justification by ICE, for example, to brutalize and treat the undocumented as if they were criminals. And it tends to have the effect of numbing the public into thinking that they deserve inhumane treatment. This is not what this country stands for.
I doubt that anyone reading this letter would have to go back more than two or three generations to find the immigrant in his or her family tree who came to this country looking for a better life. Unless one is of indigenous descent, the term “immigrant” or child of immigrants, applies to almost all of us.
Mayor Douglas’ actions reflect compassion, understanding and inclusion which is what our community should embrace. We must not fall for the diatribe that comes out of the mouth of our president as well as many of his minions like Stephen Miller, Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem. It would be well to remember that when using the word “illegal”, it is our president who is the convicted felon, not most of the hardworking undocumented individuals among us. One might call that ironic, if it wasn’t such an alarm bell for our country.
I hope that our next mayor will display the compassion and courage shown by Mayor Douglas to lead this community forward.
