1 week Ago
In the early morning hours of Thursday, March 27, three children were getting ready for school when ICE agents burst in and hauled them away. The youngest child was 8. This didn’t happen in a southwest border town.
It happened less than two hours from my home in Central New York. In New York State schools, children learn about the Constitution in first grade. By seventh grade, they are expected to know about the Bill of Rights.
Some may even be able to quote the Fifth Amendment, which states that “no person” shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” That “no person” means what it says. It applies to citizens and noncitizens, refugees, farmworkers with valid visas and farmworkers with no visas at all.
How do we explain to our children that this government feels free to violate the due process of other children? How do we describe what this country is doing in our name? On Saturday, April 5, horrified residents marched from the Sackets Harbor Visitor Center to the home of Tom Homan, Trump’s "Border Czar" demanding the family be released. That is their right under the First Amendment, at least until this government takes that right away. — Marlene Bissell, Munnsville.
