To the Editor:
A number of Easton residents, among them Easton Democratic Selectman Bob Lessler, attended the “Families Belong Together” rally at Fairfield Green on Saturday, June 30. One of 700 events held nationwide, the gathering was held to protest the current administration’s separation of children from their families as a deterrent for illegal border crossings. In response to outrage expressed across the country and across party lines, the president recently signed an executive order terminating the policy, yet has left uncertain the fate of some 2,000 traumatized children and their agonized parents currently held in detention centers.
The UN has rebuked the U.S. for “child rights violations.” How is it possible that we, in this country built on a respect for rights, have sunk so abysmally low? Those of us born here did not earn our citizenship, nor the bounty of resources, opportunity, and rights of this country. We had that good fortune because our ancestors made the bold, brave move to immigrate years ago.
Many of the immigrant families torn apart and grieving in detention centers right now are desperately fleeing persecution and violence, seeking safety for their children as any of us would if our family was threatened. This harsh, un-American treatment of asylum seekers and their children — terrorizing the kids and placing their tormented parents in shackles and cages – raises the grim specter of history’s most shameful chapters: the Trail of Tears, slavery, Japanese internment camps, the Holocaust.
Surely we have learned to be better than this? It is not isolationism, wealth, and militarism that has made America great… It has been our aspiration to ideals of freedom, brotherhood, and respect for all.
Lea Sylvestro
Beers Road, Easton