It cannot be said too many times. Elections have consequences.
What is more, those consequences can be devastating without most people knowing about them.
Recently E. J. Montini, a veteran journalist who has been writing for the Arizona Republic Newspaper for many years, told a story that made those often unknown consequences abundantly clear.
His story was about a man named Magana Ortiz whose personal and tragic ordeal, in Montini’s words, exposed “everything that’s wrong with President Donald Trump’s deportation program.”
Ortiz entered the United States when he was 15, worked hard and by age 43 had become a very successful coffee farmer in Hawaii. He and his wife have three children who are American citizens.
None of that mattered. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) arrested Ortiz and ordered him to be deported.
He paid taxes, cared for his family, provided jobs for many workers, and even the government admitted in court that he was a man of “good moral character.”
He and his family are devastated, his business is bankrupt, and to what end? Nothing, as it turns out, except to give Trump a reason to claim he is fulfilling a campaign promise.
What he won’t claim, but is equally true is that he is betraying everything good about our country.
Even worse, it didn’t need to happen, and should not have happened, at least that is what Judge Stephen Roy Reinhardt of the Ninth Circuit Court said in his ruling:
“All Magana Ortiz asked for in requesting a stay was to remain in this country, his home of almost three decades, while pursuing such routes to legal status. It was fully within the government’s power to once more grant his reasonable request. Instead, it has ordered him deported immediately. In doing so, the government forces us to participate in ripping apart a family. Three United States citizen children will now have to choose between their father and their country …. Subjecting vulnerable children to a choice between expulsion to a foreign land or losing the care and support of their father is not how this nation should treat its citizens.
“President Trump has claimed that his immigration policies would target the ‘bad hombres.’ The government’s decision to remove Magana Ortiz shows that even the ‘good hombres’ are not safe. Magana Ortiz is by all accounts a pillar of his community and a devoted father and husband. It is difficult to see how the government’s decision to expel him is consistent with the President’s promise of an immigration system with ‘a lot of heart.’ I find no such compassion in the government’s choice to deport Magana Ortiz.
“We are unable to prevent Magana Ortiz’s removal, yet it is contrary to the values of this nation and its legal system. Indeed, the government’s decision to remove Magana Ortiz diminishes not only our country but our courts, which are supposedly dedicated to the pursuit of justice. Magana Ortiz and his family are in truth not the only victims. Among the others are judges who, forced to participate in such inhumane acts, suffer a loss of dignity and humanity as well. I concur as a judge, but as a citizen I do not.”
Nor should any of us, but Trump and his supporters do.
Let’s be honest. What is happening in plain sight is that Donald Trump and those who support him are turning our nation into a country that no longer has any common sense or common decency.
All the while they have the temerity to claim they want to make America great again.
In truth they wouldn’t know “greatness” if it slapped them in the face, but there are days when I wish I could.
linnposts.com 