Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection have refrained from conducting raids in churches, mosques, synagogues, schools and hospitals for decades. The new administration, however, on day three, issued an order suspending these protocols in its relentless pogrom of nativist performative cruelty.

The recent announcement of the directive, by acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman, reminds me of statements repeatedly made these last 15 months by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) as justification for similar behaviors toward Palestinians, who suffered the aforementioned affronts and were also bombed in places of worship, hospitals and schools.

Trump as yet hasn’t employed lethality against undocumented workers and asylum seekers, but this is a disturbing policy regardless that justifies remarks made to his face by Episcopal Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde on Jan. 21 at the Washington Cathedral critiquing the inhumanity and total lack of empathy of one who purports to be a Christian.

Jon St. Laurent
North Windham