Opinion | The Nazi-ism is creeping in

There is some real, Nazi-level stuff going on in America right now. 

Now, I don’t toss around the “Nazi” term loosely. In fact, this might be the first time I’ve ever seriously used the term to discuss current events in the country. And even as I’m doing so, I’m not equating the awful atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis to what’s happening with our treatment of migrants in this country.

But on the other hand … the steady march towards authoritarianism by vilification of a certain group of people is rather hard to miss. 

Most notably, it’s the gleeful indifference to the suffering and terror inflicted upon those migrants – even migrants who are clearly and without question in this country legally and posing no threat whatsoever – that is so striking. Like, for example, watching the president of the country sit alongside another country’s president, smiling, winking, and shrugging off the fact that they’ve extraordinary renditioned – that’s the legal term for essentially abducting a person, denying them due process and shipping them off to another country – a man by mistake to a hellhole prison in El Salvador, and have no intentions of honoring the Supreme Court’s order to return him home. 

When CNN’s Kaitlan Collins attempted to question the president about denying the high court’s order and reneging on his own promise from a few days earlier to honor their order, the president asked why she wasn’t just happy that they’re not allowing criminals back into the country. A reasonable response maybe for an internet troll, but for a president, it misses on the fact that the person in question was not, as the president is, a convicted (or even accused) criminal. 

Instead, it’s just a borderline dictator proclaiming that he has wrongly deported a man – a father and law-abiding citizen during his years here – likely leading to his torture and potential death, and laughing off this horrific treatment for which he is solely responsible. 

That’s Nazi-level stuff.  

And Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not alone. 

In Alabama, a couple of weeks ago, a grad student at the University of Alabama was abducted by ICE agents in the middle of the night. He was told that his valid visa had been revoked because he posed a grave threat to national security. 

How? No one can say, including the Trump Department of Justice, which could not provide a federal judge on Monday with any details to support its claims that Alireza Doroudi posed any threat. He has never been arrested. He has never been accused of a crime. He has never appeared on a watch list. He has never led student protests or even been reprimanded by the university. 

Still, he sits in a detention center in Louisiana. Because, I guess, he looks like a troublemaker. 

That’s Nazi-level stuff. 

Dozens of students have been treated similarly and the administration has provided very little legal support for their actions. In many cases, they claim the students hold views that run counter to American foreign policy, but at the same time, most of those students have broken no laws, raised no red flags and posed zero threat to this country or the campus where they attend school. 

That’s Nazi-level stuff. 

And it’s the exact sort of thing our First Amendment protects – the freedom of people in this country to voice their opinions and organize protests to ensure that authoritarianism is kept in check and that the government doesn’t infringe upon the minority. 

Apparently we’re OK just tossing that all aside these days if the folks on the receiving end have brown skin and funny accents. 

And that, too, is some Nazi-level stuff – stoking the anger and fears of the general public against a particular group of people for no apparent reason other than to further a political agenda and grab increasingly more power. 

That’s what’s happening here. 

If you doubt it, let me ask you this: Why is there such anger directed at immigrants, particularly Hispanic and Haitian immigrants? 

Don’t try to deny that there’s anger, because you’ve seen the red-faced, spittle-flying goobers ranting and raving on TV and social media about the “damn migrants” who are “invading” our country. 

So, why is there such anger? What did they do? 

As far as I can tell, the only thing they’ve ever done is work like hell to survive and maybe get a piece of that American Dream we’ve told so many people about. 

There are certainly no more criminals among the migrants, because statistics continually show that crime rates among migrants are significantly lower than the crime rates for Americans. While significant influxes of migrants at times can strain the resources of border towns, repeated studies have shown that those strains are temporary and migrants are a net positive for our country’s economy – both at national and local levels – providing a boost in tax revenue, labor and small businesses. 

And yet, despite those undeniable facts, a large portion of the country is apparently OK with denying these folks basic American rights, basic human dignity and basic human decency. They’re OK with their abhorrent treatment, despite committing no crimes. They’re OK with the government, without a lick of evidence, shipping them to a foreign prison to be tortured and killed. 

If you’re not OK with all of that, it’s time to speak up. Because we know what happens if we don’t. 

Some real Nazi stuff.