The Real Story – A Column
Editor’s Note: We are collecting information on all organizations, churches, businesses, and individuals who are offering assistance and doing work to support our residents during this crisis. Please email us at [email protected] to have your information posted, your efforts recognized, and what you can do or are doing to help. We will add it to this story and post it on our upcoming resource guide!
They’re Hunting Our Neighbors: Hillsboro’s ICE Crisis and the People Fighting Back: The immigration emergency and crisis brought on by ICE and other federal agencies waging war on Hillsboro and greater Washington County continues. Arrests and abductions are happening daily. Because agents are not consistently displaying badges, identification, or openly producing warrants, the entire situation has turned into a hunt for humans. Let’s not sugarcoat this- all of it seems to be aimed at the destruction of lives and our communities. This is not about arresting criminals- no, it is not. This is about people with brown skin being targeted first, regardless of their backgrounds or criminal records. Even their immigration status does not seem to matter.
This has gone on so long that fear is now baked into daily life. Parents are keeping their children home. Businesses — regardless of the race of the owners — are hurting, with Hispanic/Latino-owned companies taking the most brutal hit. And while a small percentage of residents seem to be sitting at home cheering this on, the majority of people I see and talk to understand this for what it is: a manufactured disaster. And while we are not alone, people in Miami, Texas, and Kentucky, whom I spoke to this week, say nothing is happening at all in their towns, and they do not believe or understand what is happening here.…