To those who say that the members of ICE creating chaos in our communities are just doing their jobs, I ask: What job is that, exactly? Is it terrorizing naturalized citizens and documented immigrants? Is it tackling mothers who had the temerity to drop their kids off at school? Is it smashing windows and breaking up families? Is it depriving the people of this state of our rights under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and 14th amendments? 

“We were just doing our jobs” is not a new refrain. It’s from a tune often heard at the great and shameful cataclysms of history — by the officers who beat civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama, by those manning guard towers at Dachau, and by those hunting so-called fugitive slaves in the 1850s. 

Anyone suddenly terrified of being on the wrong side of history will attempt to justify recent events, saying that the repeated acts of wanton cruelty and incomprehensible violence by ICE officers are simply mistakes — and mistakes will happen. 

But these are not mistakes. They are tragedies, and they have been made by Americans expecting too little from those with the most power; by Americans allowing demagogues to render unjust and inhumane the entire notion of law and order; and by Americans failing to realize that what is happening now is a desecration of all those ideals that people across continents and across centuries gave up everything to preserve, protect and defend. 

Kevin O’Brien
Portland