Tag: ICE agents

“with liberty and justice for all”

I don’t know if the Pledge of Allegiance is still recited in public school classrooms like it was in the 1950s and 1960s.

Photo by Cris Constantin on Unsplash

I will be 73 years old this week, and I remember standing beside my desk in elementary school, facing the American flag that hung from a wooden dowel at an angle from the wall of the classroom, putting my right hand over my heart, and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

I did it even before I understood the words we were saying.

I pledged my allegiance to the flag and to the republic it represented.

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

My generation learned from an early age to revere the flag and to revere the ideals the United States of America strives to attain and uphold.

We were born after World War II. Yes, we are the “boomers” who the Gen X-ers make fun of. We did not yet know or comprehend the horrors of war. We had no concept of liberty and justice. We were too young to know that our country was special and unlike any other country in the world.

We slowly learned those things. We learned that all American citizens did not enjoy the same rights and privileges that we in an all-white school took for granted. We learned about civil rights by living through the Civil Rights Movement and school desegregation. We learned that all people are the same, regardless of skin pigment.

Somehow, the 31 simple – yet profound – words of the Pledge of Allegiance settled into our bones and our minds and our souls.

I might not remember what I ate for breakfast this morning, but the words of the Pledge of Allegiance still easily roll off my tongue.

Did Donald Trump ever learn the words of the Pledge of Allegiance? Perhaps it was not taught and recited in the prestigious private schools he attended in New York. I don’t know.

Did James Donald Bowman recite the Pledge of Allegiance in his school in Ohio? My hunch is that he did, even though he seems to have forgotten. You probably know him as James David “J.D.” Vance. (I still think it is a stretch to call the northeastern suburbs of Cincinnati “Appalachia,” but I digress.)

What about Kristi Noem? Was she taught the Pledge of Allegiance in the school she attended in South Dakota? Surely, she was. I know nothing about the political science department at South Dakota State University, but I question the validity of her Bachelor’s degree.

And what about Gregory Bovino? Did he learn the Pledge of Allegiance as a young student in California? I am appalled to report that he graduated from Western Carolina University and received a Master’s degree from my alma mater, Appalachian State University. This sickens me. I don’t know what his degrees are in. I pray they are not in political science. His buzzcut, his olive-green uniform, his practice of hurling tear gas canisters at protesters have allowed him to become the poster child for the crackdown on illegal immigration that the Trump regime espouses. The cross body strap his uniform includes is reminiscent of Hitler’s “brown shirts.” This is not a look that we are accustomed to seeing in the United States. On Saturday, Bovino adamantly told us that the federal agents in Minneapolis had followed their training that morning when they killed Alex Pretti. Before Mr. Pretti’s bullet-riddled body was cold, Bovino claimed that Pretti “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” That’s how afraid members of the Trump regime are of a Veterans Administration ICU nurse armed with a cell phone.

What about Stephen Miller? It is ironic that he allegedly campaigned to get the Pledge of Allegiance said in his high school in California. Most of the things he says about our rights as Americans call into question the political science education he received at Duke University.

Karoline Leavitt is of a younger generation, so perhaps she never learned the Pledge of Allegiance. She often wears a necklace from which hangs a cross – a symbol of Jesus Christ. It is offensive when people wear cross necklaces or verbally claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, yet the truth is not in them.

What has happened to these people? Did the Pledge of Allegiance not settle in their bones and their souls?

The Pledge of Allegiance does not mention telling lies. That comes from the Bible. The Eighth Commandment instructs us to “not bear false witness.’ In other words, it tells us not to lie.

When a person is raised in a home where the truth is always told, that commandment becomes second nature. It becomes a core value. Telling the truth is what you do. You don’t have to pause and decide whether to tell the truth. It’s just what you do.

When a person is exposed to lies in their home or in their work place, perhaps the telling of lies becomes second nature to them.

I don’t know much about the private lives of the people in the Trump Administration, but I know they are feeding the American people and the world a lot of lies about what transpired on Saturday morning in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

They are telling me not to believe my eyes and ears.

Two days after the murder, members of the Trump regime are still defiant. They will defend the actions of the ICE and Border Patrol Officers until the end. Until the end of our democracy. They told us weeks ago that Trump’s federal agents are above the law.

They seem to have lost sight of the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States of America, and the Ten Commandments.

The United States is a country rooted in the rule of law and the ideals proclaimed in our founding documents. The political party to which Donald Trump and his regime belong claims to be rooted in the Bible. They don’t pay much attention to the New Testament, but they claim to love the Old Testament.

That’s where the Ten Commandments are found. It is in the Old Testament that we are instructed not to tell lies.

I suggest that Trump and the members of his regime take a few minutes to sit quietly and read the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States of America, and the Ten Commandments. All of this might be new literature for them, but I think taking time to read these documents and Bible verses might be beneficial for them and the nation they vowed to serve and protect.

My faith in what is being taught in the political science departments at the public and private universities in the United States is being shaken. I fear the students who were born after my college days are not being taught the tenets of democracy that I was taught in school and on the university level. I fear they are not being taught to serve the public with integrity and honesty.

I fear they were not taught that the government should be afraid of its citizens, not the other way around.

I would have much preferred to have written scene 43 in my historical novel this afternoon, but I’ve spent several hours contemplating and writing this blog post. And yet, people wonder why it is taking me so long to write my novel. My brain is being torn between 2026 and 1768.

The irony is not lost on me. The people I’m writing about who were living in North Carolina in 1768 were also rebelling against tyranny. That’s not what the novel is about, but the colonists’ patience with the English Crown was already growing thin.

Janet

The government should be afraid of its citizens, not the other way around.

When will enough be enough?

I write this on Sunday afternoon during an ice storm. The worst of the storm is predicting over the next hours, but I will try to get this blog post written and posted before the power goes off. The events of this weekend in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and my government’s official response to it/explanation of it compel me to speak out.

Photo of the cover of the book, We Will Not Be Silent
We Will Not Be Silent, by Russell Freedman

The fact that we have a United States President that is hellbent on destroying the very foundations of our democracy is not bad enough. We have American citizens who are not only applauding the wrecking ball he has taken to the people of Minnesota; they are justifying what he is doing.

I am appalled at the number of Americans who are saying that Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good “got what they deserved.”

I am appalled at the number of Americans who can watch the same videos I’m seeing of Saturday morning’s murder in Minneapolis and not see what I see.

The video shows that the gun Mr. Pretti was legally carrying had been removed from him by a federal agent. Then four or five federal agents were all over him while he was held on the ground. Then, more than 10 shots were fired at him, and Mr. Pretti lay there dead. It appears that one of the federal agents fired five shots at Mr. Pretti, who was already lying motionless on the ground. Then, all the federal officers scattered.

The U.S. Government says Mr. Pretti was holding a gun when he approached to try to rescue a woman who had been shoved backwards to the ground by a federal agent, but what he held was a cell phone. They sprayed him with pepper spray or some other chemical because he was trying to shield the woman. He was trying to film the incident with his cell phone. He was not reaching for his gun.

He had a permit to carry a firearm. That is a right that Republicans hold as the most sacred right an American can have. They value it above our right to vote, above our right to worship, and above our right to assemble.

These are the same people who called 17-year-old high school drop-out Kyle Rittenhouse a hero for openly carrying a high-powered rifled down the street in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August 2020 during civil unrest. Rittenhouse fatally shot three people. Trump invited Rittenhouse to the White House so he could honor him as an American hero. A real patriot, according to Trump and his ilk. Rittenhouse was acquitted, claiming “self-defense.” He is now a darling of the Trump regime.

However, these same people are saying that Alex Pretti deserved to be shot to death because he was legally carrying a firearm – a firearm that was not in his hand. It was in a holster.

The “weapon” in his hand was a cell phone, but the federal agents did not want their actions recorded. They had to do something.

The U.S. Government says the federal agents were being threatened.

A federal agent should never feel threatened by a cell phone, unless that agent is doing something illegal or immoral.

Mr. Pretti was a 37-year-old ICU nurse at a Veterans Administration hospital. He had apparently gone into the street with his cell phone to observe and record the protest.

The U.S. Government immediately accused Mr. Pretti of being a domestic terrorist. That’s also what they immediately called Renee Nicole Good after they shot her in the face as she drove away from the ICE agents.

This is now a U.S. Government that does not want us to believe our own eyes. This is now a U.S. Government that does not want us to believe our own ears. This is a U.S. Government that wants us to forget every word of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.

But the thing that frightens me more than my government is my fellow American citizens who think this situation is just fine. They are the citizens who say, “Trump is just going after the worst of the worst. He is just going after the murderers and rapists. He is just going after the people who are here illegally.”

The people who say those things are the people who scare me. Those are the people who would say that Anne Frank got what she deserved. They are the ones who would have defended Hitler’s thugs and “brown shirts” in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. They are the ones who would have said the Jews “got what they deserved.”

They are the ones who today are saying, Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti “got what they deserved.”

They are the ones who today are saying, “If you just do whatever an officer tells you to do, they won’t kill you.”

They are the ones who say, “The Holocaust never happened.”

They are the ones who will say, “Nothing happened in Minneapolis on January 24, 2025.”

Never in my first 72 years of life would I have thought this would be the state of things in the United States of America in 2026, but here we are. We have a segment of the population who truly believe, “If you just do whatever an officer tells you to do, they won’t kill you.”

My questions for them are as follows:

If an officer tells you to wear a yellow star on your clothing, would you willingly do that?

If an officer tells you to climb into a train boxcar, would you do that?

If an officer tells you to watch them abuse and arrest a peaceful protester and never say a word about it, would you stand idly by and never say a word?

If an officer uses your five-year-old child as bait to try to bring you out of your home so they can haul you and the child away to a detention center more than 1,000 miles away, would you be okay with that?

If an officer uses your neighbor’s five-year-old child as bait to try to bring your neighbor out of his or her home so they can haul them away to a detention center more than 1,000 miles away because they committed a misdemeanor, would you be okay with that?

Are you aware that it is a misdemeanor to be in the United States illegally?

Are you aware that being shot to death is not a legitimate “punishment” for committing a misdemeanor?

Are you aware that being shot to death is not a legitimate “punishment” for filming a peaceful protest?

Are you aware that being shot to death is not a legitimate “punishment” for coming to the rescue of a fellow citizen who has been shoved to the ground by a federal officer?

And yet, we have a convicted felon “serving” as President of the United States.

We live in a country today that honors felons and murders American citizens for coming to the aid of another citizen being physically abused.

The U.S. Government says that Alex Pretti interfered with a federal operation.

It appears to me in the video that Alex Pretti saw an unarmed woman being pushed backwards to the concrete sidewalk in Minneapolis. Mr. Pretti tried to record the incident with one hand while trying to protect the woman with his body and his free hand.

If the federal agents were properly trained instead of being given $50,000 signing bonuses, they would not have murdered Alex Pretti.

Mr. Pretti, being a trained nurse and an American citizen, saw an abuse of power and tried to do what any law-abiding citizen should do.

God, help us.

Janet

The government should be afraid of its citizens, not the other way around.

“A Letter from Sharpsburg” – historical fiction

As I write this on the night of January 20, 2026, Trump is on his way to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. (In fact, news came in as I wrote this that Air Force One had been turned around due to an electrical problem. Trump will be moved to a back-up plane.)

This gathering includes many NATO countries – the very NATO countries he threatened with tariffs this week. He will, no doubt, attempt to dazzle them with his perception of the current economy of the United States. Those of us who live here, know better. The picture he painted today in his news conference was far-removed from reality. He will embarrass us in Davos. He would embarrass himself, but that is not possible.

The next couple of days will not go well. Trump never comes across as Presidential here at home or on the world stage. Will he further insult our allies at this forum? Probably. That’s all he knows to do. At the very least, he will probably make fun of French President Emmanuel Macron’s eye condition. Trump has a record of belittling people with medical problems.

In today’s news conference, he finally feigned regret that an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. Did you hear why he pretended regret today? Because someone told him that Ms. Good’s father was a Trump supporter.

I cannot remain silent as I see my government attack the least of these among us. As a Christian, it is my responsibility to speak up for the people who have no voice or whose voices are being ignored. As the President claims ICE agents are only going after “the worst of the worst,” my eyes and ears know better.

American citizens are being accosted and detained. One has already been killed on a street in Minneapolis. My government has not come after me yet, but if I wait until it does, there will be no one left to speak up for me.

Without further adieu, here is my planned blog post for today

Today’s post is about the eighth story in my short story book. “A Letter from Sharpsburg,” is a fictitious letter from an imaginary Confederate soldier who had fought in the Battle of Sharpsburg in Maryland during the American Civil War.

Photo by John Kostyk on Unsplash

As I explain in the book, it was general practice for the Union to name battles in the Civil War for a nearby physical feature, such as a creek. It was the practice of the Confederacy to name battles for the nearest town. This has led to confusion for more than 160 years.

This battle took place along Antietam Creek, near the town of Sharpsburg. Therefore, the Union called it the Battle of Antietam and the South called it the Battle of Sharpsburg.

Another example is the First and Second Battles of Bull Run (Union name) being called the First and Second Battles of Manasses in the South. It seems to me that we studied the Civil War almost every year in elementary school, but I don’t recall ever being told how or why the North and the South had different names for the same battles. Knowing the reason behind this practice would have been helpful.

I patterned this fictitious letter after letters one of my great-grandfathers wrote to his parents and sister during the Civil War. It was common in that day for a soldier to begin a letter with the words, “I seat myself and take pen in hand to write you a few lines.”

I chose this battle because more Americans were killed on the battlefield that day than on any other day in American military history. It is said that 2,100 Union soldiers and 1,550 Confederate soldiers lost their lives on September 17, 1862 near Sharpsburg, Maryland. Nearly 10,000 Union soldiers were wounded and more than 7,700 Confederate soldiers were wounded there that day.

In my book, I included author’s notes, questions for consideration, and a bibliography of the sources I used in writing “A Letter from Sharpsburg.”

In case you missed them here are the links to my blog posts about the first five stories in my book: “The Tailor’s Shears” – Historical Short Story; “You Couldn’t Help But Like Bob” — historical short story; “To Run or Not to Run” – historical short story‘ “Making the Best of a Tragedy” – historical short story; “From Scotland to America” – historical short story; “Whom Can We Trust?” – historical short story; and “Go fight, Johnny!” – historical short story.

Where to purchase Traveling Through History: A Collection of Historical Short Stories

You can find my new short story collection on Amazon in e-book (https://www.amazon.com/Traveling-Through-History-Collection-Historical-ebook/dp/B0FZQBMC2Q/)  and paperback (https://www.amazon.com/Traveling-Through-History-Collection-Historical/dp/B0FZSR6FPX/.)

You can find the paperback at Second Look Books in Harrisburg, NC, or ask for it at your local independent bookstore. Bookstores can order it from IngramSpark. It is supposed to be available at Barnes & Noble, but I’ve been told it is not necessarily in stock in the brick-and-mortar stores.

If you purchase my book and enjoy it, please give it a rating on Amazon and write a brief review of it for that site or Goodreads.com. Also, recommend it to your friends!

Word of mouth publicity is the best! Thank you!

Keeping me honest

My readers continue to try to keep me honest, which is my goal as a writer of historical fiction. Facts matter to me. Facts form the basis for my writing.

I mentioned in an earlier blog post that it had been brought to my attention that I have the wrong date in my book for the Battle of Kings Mountain. Yesterday, a friend clued me in that in “Ghost of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse: An American Revolutionary War Ghost Story,” I have someone calling 911 to report an incident to the police in 1963.

Unfortunately, 911 emergency service did not come into being until 1968. In my flimsy defense, I will point out that I originally had the story set in 1973. When I changed it to 1963, I failed to catch my 911 error.

I appreciate my historical errors being brought to my attention. This will help keep me on my toes as I write my novel. If you find another historical error in my book, please let me know.

Janet

The government should be afraid of its citizens, not the other way around.

A Friday Wrap-Up

Some weeks I have blogged on Friday as sort of a catch-up or catch-all about what’s happened over the past week. I do not wish to fall into that as a routine or habit. Too much is happening. I don’t want that self-inflicted pressure.

However, I will take the opportunity today to comment about a few things that stood out to me this week. Most, you have heard about. Others, probably not. No one can read and hear it all. It is not humanly possible as we are traveling through a political and social world propelling us at warp speed whether we want to be propelled or not.

I will not take the blame

According to Trump, it is my fault and the fault of people like me who dare to be critical of the tactics of ICE who caused a snipper – who was a registered Independent — to murder two ICE detainees on Wednesday in Dallas, Texas.

I beg to differ. Is it not Trump who is sending ICE agents out in over-sized face masks, sunglasses, and riot gear without badges or any identification in unmarked vehicles to snatch people off the street?

Perhaps it is the pictures and videos of the ICE agents that have fueled anger in our country.

When the person who has the loudest microphone and biggest name recognition in the entire world uses his platform every single day to call individuals and groups of people ugly names, we have reached a dangerous place not just in the United States but worldwide.

When the President of the United States verbally, in writing, and on social media daily calls people names and makes baseless accusations, does he not need to bear part of the blame for the political violence in our country?

Special Education Grants Cancelled

As the Trump Administration’s ongoing war against diversity, equity, and inclusion, the U.S. Department of Education has cancelled a grant made to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for the training of future preschool teachers who want to teach students with disabilities.

Since 2011, the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the university has run the SCRIPT-NC program through which it has contributed to special education training for about 10,000 students taking classes in child care in the statewide community college system.

The Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute announced in the fall of 2023 that it had received a $1 million five-year grant to help fund SCRIPT-NC. With last Friday night’s Department of Education announcement, UNC will lose $200,000 this year and apparently the funding for the remaining three years. The grant to UNC was one of 25 grants for special education teacher training programs that were abruptly cancelled by the Trump Administration last Friday night.

The cancellation notices all cited diversity, equity, inclusion, or race in the grant applications. Each of the cancellation notices concluded with the following words: “the project would be in conflict with agency policy and priorities, and so is not in the best interest of the Federal Government.”

The U.S. Department of Education claims those grants will be repurposed to support special education. Are we left to assume they will be repurposed to only help white children from wealthy families? I don’t know what else we are supposed to conclude.

The grant applications were filed while Joe Biden was President. His administration encouraged applicants to explain how grant money would be used to help underserved populations. The Trump Administration is not interested in the underserved citizens of our country.

How are any of us supposed to function when a new President comes into office and cancels everything the prior President’s administration supported and programs that the U.S. Congress funded? These grant and federal program cancellations are destroying everything from education to infrastructure to our economy.

When you can’t count on what is here today to be here tomorrow, how are you supposed to accomplish anything?

I’m glad Trump has no control over the sun or gravity. We can still count on them being here tomorrow.

My source for the information about the UNC grant: https://www.wunc.org/education.

Speak Up for Justice

Photo on Unsplash

I had the opportunity yesterday afternoon to watch and listen to another live presentation online from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. These monthly informational discussions are free to watch on Zoom.

Yesterday’s program was “Unprotected and Under Fire: State Judges at Risk as congress Weighs Action” and the panel was made up of judges from across the country.

If you aren’t aware, you need to be aware that more and more of the 30,000 judges in our country are receiving verifiable death threats. It is estimated that one-third of the state judges and their families have received such threats. This must stop!

If judges are forced out of fear to rule in a certain way on a case instead of ruling based on their interpretation of and respect for the rule of law, our democracy will crumble.

State judges do not have the protections that federal judges have. Senate Bill 2379 was introduced on July 22, 2025, to address this dangerous gap in protection of members of the state judiciaries. The short title is “Countering Threats and Attacks on Our Judges Act.”

Please urge your U.S. Senators to support this. If you wish to read the entire bill as it stands now, the text can be found at https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/2379/text/is.

Domestic Terrorism Memo

ABC News reported yesterday afternoon that “President Donald Trump on Thursday signed a promised presidential memorandum implementing an administration-wide effort aimed at alleged ‘domestic terrorism’ and ‘organized political violence.’

“He said it was directed to tackle what he claimed was a rise in ‘bad people’ and ‘anarchists’ from the left and groups that he said funded them.”

He is blatantly only going after “bad people” who oppose Republicans. He isn’t going after “bad people” on the right like the ones who assassinated Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, on June 14, 2025, after attempting to assassinate John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette earlier that morning. Elected officials who are Democrats plainly don’t count in Trump’s book.

Only the people on the left side are “bad people,” according to Trump as he daily refers to us as “left-wing lunatics.”

Free Speech

Photo of a young woman with blue tape across her mouth
Photo by Brian Wangenheim on Unsplash

It seems that when it comes down to it, Trump has a corner on the free speech market. Although freedom of speech is guaranteed in the United States by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, we have witnessed an assault on free speech for several weeks.

After a public outcry, ABC put “Jimmy Kimmel Live” back on the air. We won that battle, but the war is not over.

Trump will continue to push the limits of his power to try to quiet all voices that dare to speak out against him. The first group dictators go after are the comedians. We are seeing that play out here. Intimidation. Threats. Naming which comedians are next on his list on social media.

Trump continues to go after universities and journalists. He said this week that it ought to be against the law for a journalist to say anything bad about him. I’m sure writers are on that list. Comedians, writers, and intellectuals are always on such lists. Need I go on?

Now, Democrats are supposed to remain silent as Trump and his supporters spew their hate?

Weaponization of the U.S. Justice Department

The federal indictment of former FBI Director James Comey by a grand jury yesterday afternoon will stand as a stark reminder that Trump will leave no rock unturned as he instructs the U.S. Justice Department to go after his political enemies and people who criticize him.

Trump fired the federal prosecutor who refused to bring charges against Comey. This week he appointed an insurance lawyer who used to work for him and has never prosecuted anyone in her life to prosecute Comey. Reports indicate that she has never even been involved in the prosecution of a case.

Perhaps all this is just to embarrass Comey and cost him a lot of money. If I were pressing charges against a former FBI Director, I would want an experienced prosecutor on the case. But what do I know?

Trump has named Comey and numerous others he wants indicted or arrested and has announced that they are all guilty, corrupt, bad people who should go to prison.

He told U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi in a social media post on Saturday to go after Comey, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff, and New York Attorney General Letitia James. As I stated in a blog post earlier this week, Trump hold grudges.

Comey is being charged with lying to Congress five years ago, but what about when Pam Bondi testified before Congress on January 15-16, 2025, that as U.S. Attorney General she would not weaponize the U.S. Justice Department, was that a lie?

In the United States today, we can only pray that the rule of law will prevail and ask God to continue to give us the strength to speak up for the Constitution.

The indictment of James Comey yesterday was shocking but not surprising. Whether Comey is guilty or not, I hope the countless accusations Trump has made in speeches and on social media against Comey will result in the unraveling of these indictments.

The United States Department of Justice is exactly what that says. It is the United States Department of Justice, not the President of the United States’ Department of Justice.

Our democracy cannot stand if we have a U.S. President who can dictate that the U.S. Department of Justice can and must go after his political adversaries. It cannot and will not stand if that is where we are.

At 8:00 p.m., Thursday night, September 25, 2025, as I write this, it feels like we are there.

Janet

Let’s put a name on ICE detention: Allison Bustillo

This is a story I have been sitting on since last Tuesday. It is impossible to make sense of what has happened here locally.

I do not personally know the young woman or her family, but hearing this family’s story on WSOC-TV in Charlotte stopped me in my tracks. I have not been able to get the report off my mind.

Her family fled violence in Honduras in 2013 when Allison Bustillo was eight years old. They found a home in North Carolina. Allison studied hard. No one in the family ever broke the law, except for staying in the United States without proper documentation.

Allison wants to be a nurse. At 20 years old, she was studying nursing on a scholarship at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, until February 2025 – the day ICE agents showed up at her house. They were looking for someone who did not live there but, in the process, they took Allison from her home. This was traumatic for her family, which includes her brother who is on the autism spectrum.

Photo by Jennifer Grismer on Unsplash

Allison was taken 350 miles from her home to the ICE Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia. She tried to get released. She had broken no laws. She had been brought into the United States as an eight-year-old child.

The Stewart Detention Center is operated by CoreCivic. CoreCivic contracted with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to operate the prison, which has an official capacity of 1,752 inmates.

The ICE agents who arrested Allison Bustillo did not have to identify themselves. They didn’t have to show a badge or an identification. They didn’t have to show their faces. But Allison Bustillo was not allowed those privileges, so without warning or due process she was taken from her home and placed in a federal detention center hundreds of miles from her family.

But no one in the Trump Administration cared. Not even after her family secured the services of an attorney.

One of the ironies is that Allison was not eligible for voluntary deportation, but she was stuck in that detention center for six months. Imagine! Six months!

Her attorney was finally able to get permission for her to leave the detention center and leave the country without a deportation order. She will board (or already has boarded) a commercial flight to Honduras. Alone.

A 20-year-old nursing student returning to the country she fled 12 years ago as a child whose family sought a safe life.

Allison’s mother said, “The only memory my daughter has of Honduras is when someone put a gun to our heads.”

Here is a link to the local news report I saw last Tuesday, in case it is still accessible: https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/shelby-woman-forced-leave-us-after-months-ice-custody/RLPE6QKWOVGLXC6KHNEXT2Q5OU/.

My thoughts

I am embarrassed to be an American in 2025.

Trump was elected partly because he promised to get the illegal alien criminals out of our country. Perhaps some of the people who voted for him thought he would use legal means to accomplish that. Perhaps they thought he would only remove the hardened criminals.

They were horribly mistaken.

He has repeatedly said that only “the worst of the worst criminals” will be arrested and deported. That is a lie. Plain and simple.

A case in point is the Guatemalan minor children he tried to deport in the middle of the night this weekend. Fortunately, a judge put a stop to that. Trump needs to understand that even an undocumented child from Guatemala has the right to due process in the United States of America.

What happened to “Give me your tired, your poor… your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” that the high school chorus used to sing?

What happened to “the land of the free and the home of the brave” from our national anthem? We have failed our national anthem this year… or, I suppose we failed it on election day last November. I don’t think I can sing it anymore.

What happened to the Republican Party?

What happened to common decency?

What happened to my country?

God, help us!

Janet

The Immigration Debacle in the United States

I couldn’t say all I wanted to say in yesterday’s blog post. Ready or not, here comes more….

Photo of a paper with "Immigration" printed in bold capital letters
Photo by Metin Ozer on Unsplash

Immigration was not handled well during the first Trump Administration (i.e. people put in cages and children separated from their parents without a means of identification). Immigration was mishandled by the Biden Administration (i.e. too lax about enforcing border security). But immigration is a disaster during the second Trump Administration.

Where is the voice of reason? Where is common sense?

Deployment of California National Guard

A full month after the major protests against ICE in a Los Angeles neighborhood, Trump decided it was finally time to let thousands of California National Guard members return to their families and their jobs. Some of them have started speaking out about that experience.

The New York Times is reporting that some of the National Guard personnel have voiced serious concern over being deployed by President Trump. They are calling it a “fake mission.”

The New York Times reported, “Six member of the Guard – including infantrymen, officers and two officials in leadership roles – spoke of low morale and deep concern that the deployment may hurt recruitment for the state-based military force for years to come.”

There are reports of some members of the California National Guard voicing misgivings from the beginning about the deployment.

For Trump to keep them in warehouses in Los Angeles for a full four weeks after all threat of civil violence was over, is the icing on the cake.

It is still beside the point that Trump did not have the authority to deploy a state’s National Guard under the existing circumstances. That authority rests with the state’s governor.

“The moral injuries of this operation, I think, will be enduring. This is not what the military of our country was designed to do, at all,” one member of the Guard told The Times.”

The piece reported that National Guard personnel of Hispanic heritage were especially uncomfortable being deployed to assist ICE in rounding up illegal aliens.

Just one more instance of the chipping away of our democracy and rule of law.

“Take the rest of ‘those people,’ but don’t take my neighbor”

Nicholas Kristof wrote an op-ed in The New York Times last Saturday. Here’s the link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/19/opinion/immigrants-ice-deportation.html.

The situation he wrote about is a case-in-point of how people voted for Trump because he promised to get the violent immigrants out of the United States. They claim now that they didn’t think he meant ALL immigrants.

(My question to them is, “Why did you believe anything he said?”)

Kristof lives in a farming community in Oregon where the majority of people voted for Trump for president all three times. But now that community is upset because Trump is deporting immigrants they know. He wasn’t supposed to deport local immigrants like Moises Sotelo.

Mr. Sotelo has lived in the community for 31 years, established a vineyard, and employed 10 people. He is a pillar in his church. He is a respected businessman.

But ICE picked up Mr. Sotelo and deported him to Mexico. Kristof says the community is now up in arms. They have raised $150,000 to help with Mr. Soleto’s legal expenses. Good luck with that.

Photo of a man's hands grasping the wire fence he is being held behind.
Photo by Mitchel Lensink on Unsplash

The way I see it, many people voted for Trump because he voiced a hatred for immigrants and that appealed to his base. They hate immigrants, too, so Trump is their man. Trump called immigrants names, and that appealed to his base.

Trump said immigrants were a drain on our economy, that they didn’t pay taxes, and – worst of all – they are all violent criminals. He convinced his base that those things were true, even though they are all false.

Trump’s base refuses to accept the fact that immigrants – illegal as well as legal — pay income and sales tax. If they get a paycheck, income and Social Security taxes are deducted from that paycheck. When they purchase anything, they pay state and local sales tax — just like Americans. Who knew?

After Trump and his ICE thugs remove all the immigrants from the United States, the people in Trump’s base are going to be surprised that most crimes in America are committed by Americans. Many of them have white skin, and that’s going to be the biggest surprise of all for them.

The Case of George Retes, U.S. citizen, U.S. Army Veteran

George Retes is a United States citizen and a veteran of the United States Army. When he drove up to the Glass House Farms in Camarillo, California, to report for work, his car was approached by ICE agents. They broke a car window, sprayed him with pepper spray, and dragged him out of his car – all while he was telling them that he was a U.S. citizen and veteran just reporting for work.

ICE detained him for three days.

Photo of a U.S. Army soldier in full combat uniform from behind
Photo by Oleg Ivanov on Unsplash

I saw Mr. Retes interviewed on TV, and this is what the Associated Press reported:

“Retes was taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, where he said he was put in a special cell on suicide watch and checked on each day after he became emotionally distraught over his ordeal and missing his 3-year-old daughter’s birthday party Saturday.

“He said federal agents never told him why he was arrested or allowed him to contact a lawyer or his family during his three-day detention. Authorities never let him shower or change clothes despite being covered in tear gas and pepper spray, Retes said, adding that his hands burned throughout the first night he spent in custody.”

I am embarrassed for the United States of America. Such federal police action is not “Making America Great Again.”

This is even worse

Eighty-two-year-old Luis Leon from Allentown, Pennsylvania had been in the United States LEGALLY for 38 years since being granted asylum from the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship in Chili in 1987. He was a victim of torture by the Pinochet regime.

Unfortunately, in June Mr. Leon lost his wallet which contained his green card.

Thinking all he had to do was request a replacement green card, Mr. Leon and his wife made an appointment to get that taken care of.

But when he arrived for his appointment, Mr. Leon was handcuffed and taken away. His wife was held for 10 hours until a granddaughter could pick her up.

For a month, Mr. Leon’s family had no idea where he was. His name never showed up on the immigration tracker list. ICE had no answers for them. The family looked for him in local prisons, hospitals, and morgues, but they could not find him.

A relative in Chile found him in a hospital in Guatemala and called his family in Pennsylvania on Friday. Mr. Leon had never been to Guatemala before the United States Government decided to disappear him to that country. ICE still won’t confirm their thugs had anything to do with this. ICE claims they are “investigating” the case.

Black-and-white photo of the back of an older man in a wheelchair beside a hospital-type bed.
Photo by Annabel Podevyn on Unsplash

In conclusion

I am at a loss for words to describe how angry I am and how embarrassed I am today to be an American – even though I did not vote for Trump.

Trump campaigned on the promise to deport illegal aliens who were criminals, but now Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) snatches people off the street, from their homes, from their places of employment, and occasionally (what seems like daily) they make egregious mistakes and kidnap the wrong person.

ICE agents are under pressure to arrest 3,000 immigrates every day. So what if they nab a few legal citizens or immigrants who are guilty of nothing more than a traffic ticket?

It is un-American for ICE agents to cover their faces, wear no badges, and not identify themselves. The excuse that they have to cover their faces because they are scared of retribution doesn’t hold water. Local police officers might fear retribution, too, but they don’t wear face masks.

If you voted for Trump, you voted for this. You knew he was a horrible man and you voted for him anyway. I don’t know how you sleep at night.

At least I don’t have to live with the shame of having voted for any of this.

Until my next blog post

Keep up with reliable news reports

Keep reading good fiction and nonfiction books.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet

Thoughts about the “Big, Beautiful Bill”

I didn’t plan to blog today, but the I received an email from my Congressional Representative. (I refer to him as “Representative” only because that is his title. He represents me in name only.)

My frustration and disgust with the way things are going in the United States this year builds up in me until I just have to rant. I tried to wait a whole week, but it didn’t work out. I really am trying to be a better person, but the powers that be are making it ever so difficult.

I originally titled today’s post, “Thoughts about Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” but then I realized that it’s not Trump’s bill any more. Both houses of Congress now own it. And every U.S. Representative seat and one-third of the U.S. Senate seats will be up for grabs in November 2026. It’s interesting how all but a handful of the Republicans gleefully voted for it.

Photo Credit: Andra C. Taylor Jr on unsplash.com

The Big, Beautiful Bill

The so-called Big, Beautiful Bill was narrowly passed by the House of Representatives and was sent to the Senate. The Senate made some changes to it and it passed by one vote only because Vice President J.D. Vance voted to break the tie after Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska caved in to pressure from her fellow Republicans.

At least in the end, North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis decided to come down on the right side of history. He voted against the bill on the Senate’s final vote because he knew it would take Medicaid coverage away from probably more than 600,000 North Carolinians and possibly result in the closure of some rural hospitals.

The bill then returned to the House of Representatives where it was once again approved by a narrow margin. President Trump signed it into law on Friday with his big, beautiful black Sharpie pen while fighter jets flew over the White House. All his celebrations seem excessive, very expensive, and “in your face” to most Americans.

Polls showed that 60% of Americans were against the bill, but Donald Trump rules and 99% of the Republicans in the House and Senate fall in line without question. After all, they left their consciences at the door when they went in to cast their votes.

Speaking of the Big, Beautiful Bill, according to US Senator Ted Budd…

I received a newsletter from Ted Budd, one of the US Senators from North Carolina. This is how he explained how wonderful Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill is and why he voted for the bill that increased our national debt by more than $3 trillion:

“This week, the Senate amended and passed President Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill,’ which included major reforms to slow the ballooning cost of government programs and root out waste, fraud, and abuse.

“The bottom line is this – the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ lowers taxes for families, makes our country safer and more secure, and unleashes economic growth for the future.

“I voted in favor of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act because the people of North Carolina deserve more of their hard-earned wages, a more secure border, a reinvigorated military, responsible spending reforms for government programs, and a thriving economy.

  • “Helping Americans keep more money in their pockets by extending key provisions of President Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Preventing the largest tax increase in American history will save the average North Carolinian $2,474 in 2026.
  • “Working families will receive significant savings with the increase and permanence of the child tax credit, expanded tax credits for paid leave, enhanced 529 savings accounts, and additional childcare access.
  • “This legislation lowers taxes for seniors relying on Social Security.

“AND SO MUCH MORE …”

Yeah, right, Senator Budd. You just keep believing that.

Interesting that he forgot to mention what the bill did to Medicaid recipients in North Carolina and the national debt.

U.S. Representative Mark Harris’ email about the Big, Beautiful Bill

The icing on the cake for me was when I received a response on Tuesday from US Representative Mark Harris. I had emailed him (again… and again) imploring him to represent the people of the 8th District of NC instead of Donald Trump.

Since he is (or was) a Baptist minister, I finally even pulled the Christianity card on him … to no avail. With the fraud that surrounded his campaign a few years ago in which his own son testified against him and which forced him to drop out of that race, I was not surprised that my words about “caring for the least of these” fell on deaf ears.

His response to me was, in part: “On July 3, 2025, I proudly voted in favor of the Senate Amendment to H.R. 1 when it passed the House by a vote of 218 to 214. It was signed into law by President Trump on July 4, 2025. With this crucial reconciliation package across the finish line, President Trump will be empowered to continue leading America into a new golden age.

“First and foremost, this legislation unlocks President Trump’s America First agenda and will help keep our economy strong by lowering taxes for individuals, families, and small businesses.”

After listing a few of the wonderful ways the bill will make us all rich again in this “golden age” he wrote, “Additionally, the bill fulfills our promise to keep our communities safe and our country sovereign. It fully funds our border security by providing $175 billion to hire of thousands of new ICE agents, add detention beds, bring on more immigration judges to streamline the deportation of illegal aliens, and complete a strong and secure border wall.”

Jesus must be so proud of him!

Mr. Harris, I’m sure you will seek reelection in 2026, because you obviously have no shame and haven’t read the New Testament in a very long time. You are actually proud of voting for $175 billion to hire thousands of new ICE agents and add detention beds!

Mr. Harris, will the thousands of new ICE agents be as heartless and cowardly as the ones we already have who are afraid to show their faces? Will they be as sick as the officers who showed up in Los Angeles this week just to intimidate families enjoying an afternoon in a public park?

Everything about this “Big, Beautiful Bill” makes me sick. It reeks of turning America into a police state. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, the sick get sicker, and no one but the wealthiest among us know who or what they can depend on.

Mr. Harris’ email sent me right over the edge last night. I’ve never felt so un-represented in my life.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read.

Do what you can to give aid and comfort to the people affected by the flood in Texas.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet