Letter: What would you have us do?

What would you have us do? After viewing over and over from every angle the appalling tragedy of a young mother being executed as she attempted to leave the scene following a confrontation with heavily armed and masked ICE agents, what is the appropriate response?

The argument is being made that she was violating the law by interfering in a legal action and by disobeying a law enforcement agent, neither of which is a capital offense. The issue of whether she was attempting to injure the agent seems absurd, as she was clearly trying to get out of the way. What she did was in no way domestic terrorism.

How are we to protest against the often brutal and insensitive practices employed by ICE agents against vulnerable people if we have to be afraid to put our bodies on the line to do so? Of those being arrested, the vast majority have been guilty only of trying to survive and build better lives. Certainly, the desire to help these people who are losing their homes, their livelihoods, and sometimes their families is shared by many, if not most, Americans. Many of these people receive no due process of law, yet we are told that offering them help is an illegal act, and in this instance, one woman, following her conscience, paid for it with her life.

We have to remember that we are now living in a time when not only the rule of law is being violated by the government itself, but even the moral restraints of common decency are often discarded. What are we to believe when we are confronted with false narratives and doctored images on a daily basis? A government that commits illegal acts can hardly expect its citizens to do otherwise.

I am reminded of Nazi Germany when the German people watched the government round up those they deemed undesirable and carted them off to unspeakable fates. Those who tried to speak out against what they saw were silenced, and what resulted was the Holocaust. What was their responsibility, and what is ours?

We must come together to recognize and protect what is left of our failing democracy before it is too late. We must learn to read between the lies. We must refuse to be silent. We must demand accountability and human decency from our government lest we too pass into history as a nation that, in failing to stand up for any of us, failed to stand up for all of us.

Julie Melchior
Ferdinand