The time to act, to be concerned is now

“Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. They’re allowed to take only a knapsack and a little cash with them, and even then, they’re robbed of these possessions on the way. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. Women return from shopping to find their houses sealed, their families gone. The Christians in Holland are also living in fear because their sons are being sent to Germany. Everyone is scared.” ― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl.

I cannot think of anything in this world that is more important than defending and protecting humanity of ourselves and our neighbors right now. If you believe that it isn’t that bad, I am here to tell you it is.

Things like racial profiling, breaking of our constitutional rights, supposedly stealing of property — particularly of cell phones while being detained and not given back when released with no charges, supposedly using sexually assaulting detained/arrested persons as a bribe to see their children, random stopping of vehicles and people walking to capture them, injuring and killing presumably innocent people, people being taken at the court houses while doing the right thing and following the lawful processes to become citizens at immigration hearings, taking people at schools and at their places of work, physically breaking into homes without judicial warrants, ripping people from their vehicles, veterans being deported, detaining and/or arresting people exercising their rights to record these acts the government is committing as well as protesters exercising their rights to protest what the government is doing. These are the sorts of things happening.

Entire communities and populations are afraid to simply leave their home, perhaps to even just be in their home, because they are being terrorized by our government that is not playing by the rules fully, constantly pushing the envelope further.

How easy is it for most of us to sit at home and do nothing. I feel like most of us sound and look like the people they don’t wish to terrorize, well, unless you protest what they are doing or try to document it.

There are just so many atrocities happening frequently and daily. It’s conditioning and desensitizing more and more every day.

The biggest elephant in the room is the propaganda. The constant lying, propaganda by the administration, the president, the departments of government, and the press secretary. Up is down, left is right, and yes is no. It seems like if it goes against the agenda it’s labeled as fake or wrong. If it fits the agenda it’s labeled as good and right. This happens regardless of the irrefutable proof that an item is true or false.

I just don’t know how much more it will take a person to see that what happened to Anne Frank is happening here now. The parallels to the 1930’s and early 1940’s Nazi Germany regime are so close to one another that everyone should be scared. It has to be said. It has to be known. I’ve watched many historians remark on this in the last months through news interviews and those people posting on their own social media avenues, such as Jason Stanley, an expert on fascism, who left his job at Yale as a professor and moved to Canada last year to work at the University of Toronto.

What is happening to mostly minorities and those protesting will only continue to trickle out to everyone, if experts like Stanley are correct that history will repeat itself here in the United States. Here in Minnesota, ICE has been seen conducting these operations all over the state. It goes unchecked perhaps most often in the smaller the communities are for reasons that there are not the groups of people there to witness it and document it. They are able to swoop in quickly and leave.

I call on humanity to stop being so demonizing on political spectrums and instead focus on the concept of, “Is this really right or not?”

Despite what rhetoric or propaganda may have you believe, being an undocumented person in the United States isn’t a criminal offense, it’s a civil one. I agree we need to maintain our security in this country. The propaganda that ICE is only targeting criminals is a fallacy, and their own numbers show that. The overwhelming majority are people with no criminal past. I encourage you to view the numbers for yourself at ice.gov/statistics and ice.gov/detain/detention-management. In 2025, 310,133 individuals were detained by ICE, with only 108,935 of them having a criminal conviction — roughly one-third only. An additional 72,130 people had only pending criminal charges, not convictions. This information comes directly from ICE’s fiscal year 2025 report.

Do you realize that these undocumented people pay taxes, and do not reap the benefits of things such as unemployment insurance (unless legally authorized to work here) or other securities such as Medicare (with the exception of emergency care)? How scary is that? Can you imagine living in a foreign country, having to try and afford health care costs here without insurance, and not having the security of unemployment insurance to buffer that if you loose your job?

I don’t know what each person’s reasons are for not obtaining the legal ramifications for residing in this country but I know that they are human beings contributing to society, most of them in great ways in our communities. They have family. They have friends. They are just trying to make it in this world like you or me. They buy things our communities and help support our local economy.

I know what matters for me is humanity, with all people belonging wherever they are at as long as they are being productive citizens of our society. I am not sure if you remember or not how the United States was formed into what it is today, but it has a dark past and a positive past. We overtook the land and killed a bunch of the natives, most of them, that were here — that happened not so long ago. Initially they were friendly with us, until we tried to eradicate them. We suppressed people of color up until the middle of this last century, less than 100 years ago. Strangely, it was around then that we fought against this kind of atrocity in World War II to free the people of their oppression and hateful acts.

I can’t help but feel that most of the above is exactly what our government is trying to do now in Minnesota and in our nation at this moment.

I care about people. I don’t care about the color of their skin. I don’t care what their accent sounds like. I don’t care if they have different ways of living. I do care that groups of people are being threatened, targeted, taken away, and terrorized in our backyard. I do care that our government is outright lying to us on a daily basis without recourse and that they can just do that. It’s a serious cause for concern, one that should be protested and demanded eradicated in our own society.

I feel like more people in all communities should be active in showing the same sort of concern through action because these people need our assistance. One day you will need their assistance too. If we turn our back on our neighbors, who will be there for us when the same things happen to us?

What made us powerful as a nation was not hatred, lies and terrorizing, but was standing up for good and humanity. People used to feel safe here. Let’s return to that. The time to act is now and always. Complacency, comfort doesn’t have a place in defending the rights of ourselves and our neighbors. Do your part to protect our freedoms, truth, and human beings. Don’t deny your eyes.