… yeah, I can’t imagine what it’d be like in California right now, with the bulk ICE sweeps, for people who have legitimate refugee status which either has been taken away already or which has been threatened to be taken away. Just… ouch. Everyday life now a terrifying opportunity to be swept up and deported who-even-knows-where. (did you see the Washington Post article indicating that 61% of the human beings made in the image of God (“criminals” or “animals” per the administration) who have already been deported, some to third-country camps, have… zero criminal record at all, not even speeding tickets they paid or immigration violations? and how many of those who do have any criminal record just have immigration/traffic violations [half. half of the 39% have only immigration/traffic records])

(which, incidentally, you can at least partially confirm via the ICE official spreadsheet of who they are currently detaining [a current-detention snapshot is not equivalent to a who-has-been-deported list, but the proportions are still… really something] at https://www.ice.gov/detain/detention-management#stats ; the number of “we haven’t even bothered to pretend we’re charging them with a crime” detentions is going up and up and up every month.)(Because clearly it’s a great use of taxpayer dollars to kidnap and imprison or deport people who have done nothing wrong and who, in some cases, have been working here and paying taxes for *decades*, as long as it teaches the general public to allow secret police to grab whoever they want without a warrant, and to be afraid of going against Trump, and as long as it energizes the “base” who wants brutality and will tolerate higher inflation as long as they can feel like other people are having it worse, and as long as the for-profit detention centers being run without oversight or checks on their actual practices can add a bit of extra pocket-lining for the “right” people…)

But that, as a country, we’ve given previously-traumatized refugees a really good reason to be extra-scared of strangers when in public: AUGH. This is not Christian (love your neighbors is literally the command that Jesus says is right up there with loving God as the first command! what you do to the ‘least of these’ you do to Christ! etc.) and it is not at all humane or okay.

Thank you. The little things really do make a difference.