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We wish we didn’t have to continually write editorials condemning hateful comments from the president and reminding people that everyone deserves respect. Yet, we are living in a time when demeaning people who are different from us and threatening — even punishing and deporting — immigrants is a daily occurrence.
Last week, President Donald Trump took aim at people from Somalia, calling them “garbage.” To be clear, no person is garbage, no matter where they live or where they began their lives.
Such inhumane insults are hurtful. But worse, they open the door to dangerous actions, not only from the federal government but also from people who take the president’s words as a license to act on them.
As three Somali-born members of the Maine Legislature wrote in a column this week: “Reckless rhetoric does not stay confined to speeches or screens. It spills into real life.”
“Dehumanizing language can embolden people with no governmental authority to harass, intimidate or threaten our neighbors,” Reps. Mana Abdi, Deqa Dhalac and Yusuf Yusuf wrote. “There is no place in Maine or in America for vigilantism, racial profiling, or community members taking immigration enforcement into their own hands.”
Mainers agree and there has been an outpouring of support for Maine’s immigrants from Somalia.
“By demeaning those who come to this country seeking freedom, safety, and opportunity, the President — who is the son and grandson of immigrants himself — is demeaning the very idea and spirit of America,” Gov. Janet Mills said in a statement last week.
“President Trump does not understand that but the people of Maine do, which is why we will continue to treat one another with kindness and compassion — the most powerful repudiation of the president’s cruelty there is,” she added.
Such kindness and support, of course, is needed — now more than ever. But, it is not enough to overcome the cruel and racist policies of the Trump administration.
Beyond the insults, the Department of Homeland Security has already taken steps to restrict immigration, and even banned travel, from more than three dozen countries, most of them in Africa. The department is also ending legal protections for recent immigrants from several of these countries, which means they could be deported from the U.S. even though they are going through the legally required steps to remain in the country and to become citizens.
In Boston, immigration officials disrupted a citizenship ceremony to remove several people who had taken all the legally required steps required to become U.S. citizens, a process that takes years. Across the country, the administration is unilaterally stopping the citizenship process for people from more than a dozen countries, including Afghanistan and Somalia. These people were doing immigration “the right way” in the parlance of many on the political right, but they are still being harassed and perhaps denied a place in the U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has launched aggressive raids against Somali communities in Minnesota after the president’s remarks and allegations of fraud during the COVID pandemic, allegations that have spread to Maine through right-wing groups. Such allegations, if they are credible, should be investigated, but they should never be used to malign an entire nationality or group of people.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, in a BDN column, reminded us: “Let’s be clear: Unless you’re a Native American, we are all immigrants. … That’s the story of America. It should be a source of pride, not something to weaponize.”
Immigrants, for generations, have strengthened America. They will continue to do so. Sure, there have been periods of anti-immigration sentiment and the federal government has turned away refugees and even interned new Americans. Those events are now looked back on in shame and regret.
Trump’s rhetoric, and worse, the actions of his administration, are racist and ultimately harmful to America. These actions must be condemned, and more important, stopped and reversed.
