Americans Chillingly Turn Blind Eye to Nazi-Like Actions in U.S.
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Americans Chillingly Turn Blind Eye to Nazi-Like Actions in U.S.

The New York Times’ above the fold, front page story, entitled Handcuffs at Dawn, was both chilling and deeply depressing. Anyone of conscience reading about how U.S. immigration police raid people’s homes early in the morning and in the middle of the night to drag away a father, son or daughter, never to be seen again, cannot help but think of the Nazi raids during the Holocaust.

What a horrible reminder and what a heartless thing to do to anyone or any family regardless of immigration status. These actions by the police all over the country are terrifying to the adults and children affected and a heinous reminder of both the past and of where America has come in so short a time.

Over 65,000 people have been arrested by Immigration since President Trump took office, an approximately 40% increase over the same period before he assumed power. It is terrible that we are treating people and families so traumatically and so heartlessly (the majority of whom have been working in the country and sending their children to school for years), just because they entered without papers. Even worse, it is shocking and pitiful that we all, as citizens, close our eyes to this sort of Gestapo behavior in our midst – on our streets, on American soil.

We have all read books about the horrors experienced by Jews and some others in Germany and throughout Nazi occupied Europe. And, those of us of conscience were horrified by the indifference then, by the ugly turning a blind eye, by the populations at large. It has always been impossible to imagine how the citizenry at large in Nazi countries during World War II could have turned their backs on the horror faced by Jews and other minorities.

But, we are doing the same now and doing it in America! Instead of rising up and saying this cannot be done on American soil, we are all, or most of us, remaining silent. As such, we are complicit, just as the European citizenry of the Nazi era.

Shame on us all!!

Daniel Socolow
Daniel Socolow: President, Socolow Group. Former Director of the MacArthur Fellows Program, President of the American University of Paris, Vice President of Spelman College. BA, MA, Ph.D.


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