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To the editor:
Alligator Alcatraz is an abomination. What have we come to as a nation?
We build a concentration camp for immigrants and then give it a supposedly humorous nickname. We're doing exactly what the Germans did in the 1930s: identify a scapegoat, demonize them, and when they're demonized: Jews, in the case of the Germans, and immigrants in our case, then it's OK to do bad things to them, like deny them basic human rights and impose physical suffering; rip families apart, deny any legal recourse, send them back to the abject poverty and gang violence they were attempting to escape.
I hear it all the time: The only people who have been deported or sent to these camps are criminals -- rapists, murderers, drug dealers. But we know this is not true. Foreign students, here legally, have been rounded up and flown to detention facilities because they participated in demonstrations against the genocide in Gaza. They have been denied legal rights and forced to sleep on bug-infested floors in overcrowded facilities. ICE agents have targeted Home Depots, taking into custody immigrants simply looking for work.
I don't know what's more astounding, the cruelty or that so many of us are OK with it.
The rule of law under which our society operates does not apply only to American citizens. The Constitution says "persons" have basic legal rights; it does not say "American citizens."
We all know our immigration system is broken, but it can be fixed without discarding our humanity and respect for the rule of law.
Ray Clasen
North Fort Myers