Going Viral

Now children on their way home from pre-school are fair game. It is only right that they be herded into fenced detention areas by masked agents in black garb. And don’t go soft over that anxious little face beneath the blue woolen cap with white bunny ears.  

What a clever plan. Use five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos as bait to nab his father. Totally worth terrorizing a small child to get his dad, never mind that Liam’s family had been “following the legal process perfectly, from presenting themselves at the border to applying for asylum and waiting for the process to go through,” according to the Ramos’s lawyer. Yes, definitely detain Liam despite the pleas of other adults in the house to care for him.

And kudos to ICE for rousing – with guns drawn - a Minneapolis man from his afternoon nap and hustling him, bare-chested, out of his home into subfreezing weather. What an optic: a circle of federal agents, some heavily armed, some in camo uniforms and helmets, surrounding a graying grandfather in his underwear. As embarrassing to the country and the military as it is horrific, it would make a punchline for a terrible joke: How many U.S. agents does it take to round up a half-naked man? Awkward for Trump, Vance, Miller & Co. that the campaign was a mistake: Chongly “Scott” Thao is a citizen.  

Who are the people behind those masks? 

Didn’t Trump say he was unleashing ICE to round up the “worst of the worst”? So why are ICE agents in Minneapolis harassing random people of color, demanding to see their papers? Again, it doesn’t bode well when among those targeted are off-duty police officers, citizens all. 

And then there’s Renee Goode, white, mother of three, shot and killed while retreating in her car, and Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse for the VA, shot multiple times, after filming ICE activities with his phone and trying to help a woman who’d been knocked down. 

How often has ICE victimized innocents and American citizens, but we, bowled over by the barrage of bad news, screened it out? Based on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data as of November 2025, the Cato Institute reports that 73% of ICE detainees have no criminal convictions, and in 2025, over 170 American citizens were mistakenly arrested and detained. Ironic that an administration so bent on rooting out “illegals” has so flagrantly defied the law.   

Have the protections and rights of the Constitution been abandoned by this administration? Looks it. Government diligence in discerning “the worst” is lacking.  

Is this what Trump voters had in mind? Do Republicans in Congress think this is acceptable? Have they read the Constitution they vowed to uphold? Perhaps we, The People, need to remind them: the Fifth Amendment assures that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law,” and the Fourth Amendment guarantees “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Generations before us fought, bled, and died to ensure American rights. Naively, I thought that battle had been won. Now it is up to us. If you abhor the cruelty and injustice of lawless ICE actions, call or write your congress people. Tell them to vote NO on funding to the Department of Homeland Security and expansion of ICE. 

 

 

 

Inside the Skin

An unmasked man called me a sheep this morning as I waited in line at Trader Joe’s.  Believe me, I dished out some solid zingers later as I re-lived the conversation in my car on the way to my next errand. But, why would a short man with a mustache insult a masked gray-haired woman in a flannel shirt and flats for no reason?

I’d arrived at the parking lot at 7:50 AM to take advantage of senior shopping hours. Because of the store’s effort to reduce capacity to enable social distancing, a line had formed. It ended by a table occupied by two men drinking coffee outside Bagel Plus.  “Are you in line?” I asked. They shook their heads no, and I took my position 6’ beyond them.

One of the men said, “So.  What’s in Trader Joe’s that’s worth waiting for? You could cross the street to Shop Rite and walk right in.” He’d been pleasant, so I launched into my list of Trader Joe’s delicacies: shrimp burgers, dark chocolate covered peanut butter cups, frozen halibut, and mahi-mahi burgers, “heavenly when grilled!” I added. 

He nodded, satisfied, and said, “They have some specialty items then.” 

They were joined, at that point, by the short, rude man.  My shopping motives held apparent fascination for he, too, asked me the same question about waiting. His friend said, “She’s already explained. I’ll fill you in.”

“Sheep,” said the rude man, looking at me.

Startled, it took me a moment to process. “That’s an insult,” I said, though with question in my tone, for really, why would he bother?  The man shrugged and nodded. 

There are countless “I-should-have-saids” that would have been wise, calm, and cutting, and if anything similar happens again, my in-car rehearsal has now equipped me. But I am spoiled in being unaccustomed to fending off unkindness, and all I came up with on the spot was bland truth, “it’s not sheep-ish to stay healthy. “

After Trader Joe’s, I drove to Stop & Shop, still rankling, but not hurt.  Being called a sheep is the mildest of affronts, but the comment stayed with me.  Given the protests churning the country, I reflected, how would it feel to live with the routine threat of harsh words, racial slurs, injury, injustice, and death?  These based not on one’s actions but on something that was God’s decision alone.  When does that hurt, frustration, and anger erupt? 

- When, for eight minutes, Officer Derek Chauvin kneels on the neck of George Floyd, a black man who has done no harm. 

- When Ahmaud Arbery is hunted down and shot for jogging while black.           

- When plainclothes police burst into an apartment without knocking and fatally shoot Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT, eight times. 

- When cell phone technology permits video proof, and white people can no longer look away. 

Brute force. Intrusion with no knock. Rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse peaceful protesters. Have the First and Fourth Amendments been scrapped? Is the Constitution still law or just a list of suggestions? And when we love color and diversity in all else, in flowers, fabric, and our fellow creatures, why is it cause for suspicion in our own kind?

As streets worldwide boiled with protesters willing to risk Covid so their voices might be heard, I shopped for groceries.  While passing in aisles, masked shoppers were cordial, saying, “hello” or “excuse me” or “stay safe.” Thoughts of the rude man subsided as I sought corn meal, potatoes, butter, and birthday cards. 

My rounds complete, I wheeled my cart to check out. The cashier, an African American woman with a tumble of magenta curls, greeted me. Her mask hid her mouth, but her eyes were smiling. No one waited behind me, so our conversation was leisurely as she registered my selections, and I packed them in paper bags. We talked about the anguish of past weeks, and our hope that good would come of it.  She told me about her daughter, who’d been successfully treated for bone cancer when she was eight years old, and how grateful they both were to her doctors. She drew herself taller as she told me her daughter had wished to give back, and now, at 34, is a radiologist. 

Oh, the cashier was proud of her girl! She pulled out her phone to show me a picture of the two of them, and in the photo, I was able to see my cashier’s smile. In that moment, we were two moms bending over the phone, teary-eyed together at the thought of the torment of her child’s long-ago cancer and beaming (behind our masks) at today’s pride in her daughter’s path. 

When we parted, we were earnest in our wishes that each other stay healthy, and curved our arms in an air hug. Surely that encounter is the one more true? May the horror of Floyd’s death and the furor released shock us into connection with the people inside the skin.