A good friend of mine is a legal immigrant, here on a post-college work visa. He has followed every rule every step of the way. Yet he and friends of his who are all legal immigrants are scared to death right now.
They are being screwed over by their landlord, but they don't want to get the city involved because their afraid it will cause something to happen where their visas are revoked.
My friend has been physically assaulted when, at a restaurant, he asked a man who was screaming abuse at a woman to stop it. The man punched him in the face, causing him to lose a tooth.
He was recently hit by a car while crossing the street in a crosswalk with the light in his favor. The driver stopped, but he waved the driver off.
In both cases, he didn't want to call the police because he fears that by doing so, somehow it will end up causing him to lose his visa. I tell him constantly that he doesn't have anything to be afraid of, that he should call the police.
But the truth is that I totally get why he's afraid. And he's one of several immigrants who said much the same. This is what the Trump administration has done to the immigrant community in this country, no matter the documentation.
Sowing fear into all immigrants, the majority of whom are non-white, is classic white supremacist behavior. It should anger and appall anyone who really gives a damn about the country.
And if you really care about crime, you would do everything you can to make sure that anyone who wants to report a crime feels they can do so without having feeling they might be punished for doing so.
It's just so damn pathetic that we have gotten to this point, this supposed nation of immigrants. We don't even live up to our lies.
