We must work to resist dictatorship

Because it hasn’t been updated in 35 years, our immigration system is profoundly broken. This at a time when humans around the globe are on the move more than ever before, displaced by wars, environmental disasters, and economic hardship.

In 2024, Congress put forward a bipartisan border bill to provide long overdue reforms. Border Patrol officials supported the bill, but President Trump spread lies about it and ordered his MAGA cohorts to kill it, so they did. Instead of combining border security with a path to citizenship for hard working, undocumented citizens who have been here for decades, we have ICE running amok in our neighborhoods. With no accountability or oversight, they are arresting U.S. citizens, shooting reporters with pepper balls, and terrorizing children.

What is to stop a group of racist thugs from putting on some camo, masking up, and kidnapping brown people into their own black SUVs? Trump is using dangerous language to dehumanize immigrants, encouraging his followers to harden their hearts and ignore our shared humanity. In exchange, he promises safety. In actuality, he has made the world more dangerous for all of us.

If he were really concerned about crime, he wouldn’t have eliminated funding for successful crime prevention programs such as the Peacekeepers Program, which resulted in a 41% reduction in gun violence. He admitted on the campaign trail that he wanted to be “a dictator for one day,” but it’s becoming increasingly clear that he wants to be a dictator for life.

It’s up to We the People to do all we can to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Janet McDonnell

Arlington Heights