March 29, 2024
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March 29, 2024
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Linking Northern and Central NJ, Bronx, Manhattan, Westchester and CT

Desperation Is Not Criminal

Your editorial (“An Obscene Comparison,” June 27, 2019) concerning the misuse of the term concentration camp was well put, however, you failed to connect the dots as to why this term was used. You failed to condemn the same attitudes and phraseology that parallel the Nazi justification for their use. The border “facilities” are certainly internment camps, with all the connotations of the illegal camps that were used to imprison American citizens of Japanese descent. They were stripped of their rights, freedom and property. The same language that was used against Jews and the Japanese is now used to demonize the current group of immigrants. Our president refers to them as “rapists, drug smugglers, thugs and murderers.” These attempts to dehumanize others is of the same ilk as the racist and anti-Semitic propaganda of the past. We should remember the desperation of our parents and grandparents who sought escape in any way possible. Can you imagine the desperation of a parent who sends a young child to cross the border alone? My mother was on the last kindertransport out of Germany, however, at least she was protected in a group. The planned expenditure of billions of dollars on a useless border wall could be better spent on staffing enough judges to quickly rule on asylum cases either here or in central America, as only 15% of applicants actually gain asylum. We should not criminalize desperation.

Earl Sandor
Hackensack
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