ICE round-ups of innocent, legal citizens in KY is not left, right, or American | Opinion

Lately, I’ve been hearing stories about immigrants, immigrants not unlike those who would become my grandparents. But instead of coming to a land of freedom and opportunity, these immigrants are terrified in the place they now call home.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend told me about a scene she witnessed in a local fast food restaurant. A teenage boy behind the counter was told by an unhappy customer, “I’m gonna call ICE on you.” My friend knew the boy’s parents, who are from Mexico. The boy was born here and is a U.S. citizen.

Another friend told me the Latina who cleans her house only drives side roads to get there — for fear of being stopped in an ICE sweep. One sunny afternoon, my husband watched a man duck behind a tractor at a local store.

These are not necessarily people without legal status. These people are afraid that the color of their skin or the way they speak will get them nabbed by masked men in unmarked cars and taken to detention camps far from family or legal representation — where they may be deported to a country that is not their country of origin and imprisoned without judge or jury.

In June, ICE arrested 81 people in Kentucky. Twenty-five of them were charged with criminal offenses, but the remaining 56 were not criminals. They were fathers, sons, and husbands torn from their loved ones for a misdemeanor. They were working men whose wages paid the rent and fed their families, and they were sent to detention facilities like the one at the Boone County Jail in northern Kentucky. That center is the only full-time ICE facility in Kentucky, but at least half a dozen county jails also have contracts with ICE to incarcerate people who have been picked up.

Since 2011, ICE has had a policy, known as the Sensitive Locations Policy, that prevented arrests at schools, hospitals, places of worship, and disaster relief areas. After he returned to the White House, one of the first things Donald Trump did was end that policy. Now people are afraid to go to church, send their children to school, and receive medical care. If you survive massive floods or wildfires, should you then have to avoid places that offer your family the food and shelter they need — all because you may get picked up by ICE?

One of the most heart-breaking stories I’ve heard recently came from someone who works in the foster care system of a major American city. She said there has been an alarming uptick in mothers giving up their newborn babies for adoption in hospitals in that city. As far as she could determine, those mothers are all immigrants. Given the choice between the uncertainty that results from being detained and separated and the certainty in giving your newborn to someone who will keep them safe with much better prospects in life, what would you choose? And how terrified must a mother have to be to make that choice?

In the Commonwealth of Kentucky, there are no family detention centers. When a parent is detained, they are always separated from their children. The children go into foster care and might eventually be adopted. Before a 2018 federal court ruled that ICE must keep records of family separations, there were no records kept. As a result, there was no way to reunite those families when the parents were released.

This is not a question of politics. It’s not a Republican or Democratic issue, not a right or left issue. We each have to ask ourselves if this is our vision for America. Is this who we are as a nation? If this is not your vision for America, then now is the time to speak up. Contact your representatives in Frankfort and Washington. Make choices about what businesses you support. Participate in a rally. There are many ways to make your voice heard.

Let us all take part in writing the next chapter of our democracy together.

Kate Reilly Brinkley is a member of Gathering for Democracy, a cross-partisan group of concerned citizens of the Bluegrass.