CRAFTSBURY – The Bill of Rights in our Constitution explicitly provides freedoms of speech and assembly via Amendment l. Amendment lV provides protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Amendment XlV states those residing here cannot be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. The Constitution was written to prevent the excesses and abuse of power once held by kings.
Donald Trump, increasingly ruling this country as a king (with help from advisors), has become expert at defying Constitutional norms. His administration’s attempt to normalize “disappearing” people, a fear tactic long employed by authoritarian regimes, is a way to sow fear and to silence criticism. Footage in the past week showing the disappearing of Vermont resident and Palestinian student Mohsen Mahdawi, when he went to report for his final citizenship interview in Colchester is chilling.
Who is ICE? Why do they drive unmarked black vehicles? Why take into custody and disappear a man who had used his free speech rights to criticize the destruction of his homeland? Why are some of the ICE men masked? Why don’t they wear badges with id numbers as police officers must? Will they be the ones to round up the “homegrowns” (presumably any of us at any time)?
Kudos to Senator Christopher Van Hollen of Maryland who traveled to the notorious concentration center in El Salvador to visit Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a resident of Maryland who had been swept up in a mass ICE deportation despite court orders that prevent this man from being returned to El Salvador. “I don’t think it’s ever wrong to fight for the constitutional rights of one person, because if we give up on one person’s rights, we threaten everybody’s rights,” Van Hollen said in an interview on CNN Sunday, adding, “Anyone who is not prepared to stand up and fight for the Constitution doesn’t deserve to lead.”
In an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune last week, Vermont resident Elizabeth Shackelford gives perspective on the above sweep earlier this month that sent 250 immigrants to El Salvador without any due process. She linked a Bloomberg News article noting that 90% of those sent away from this detention and extradition sweep had no criminal records in the U.S.
“As the executive branch brazenly flouts the Supreme Court, we have reached the constitutional crisis so many have feared, and its consequences put our most basic freedoms at risk. If you think you are safe from this overreach because you haven’t broken the law, neither had most of these men. If you think you’re safe because you’re not an “illegal immigrant,” many of these men weren’t, either. If you think you’re safe because you’re a “homegrown” American citizen, that is cold comfort today because Trump urged President Nayib Bukele to build more prisons because “homegrown are next.” Beware: It’s a common play for authoritarians to hone tools of oppression against unpopular populations before they roll them out against anyone they wish.”
This is all too serious to name as a side show, but it does reduce our attention to the decimation of the Veterans and Social Security Administrations and many other vital services under siege by [Elon] Musk and the creators of Project 2025, as well as the Trump tax cut that will further concentrate wealth for the very richest.
Anne Hanson, Craftsbury
