When the School Bus Comes, They Take the Parents

School started this week in Connecticut. For most families, that means backpacks, new teachers, first-day pictures and the familiar morning rush to get children out the door and onto the school bus.

But for some Connecticut families, the school bus became the beginning of a nightmare.

There are reports that ICE agents have been conducting enforcement operations in Danbury, Bridgeport and Stamford, arresting people in neighborhoods and around school bus stops. Approximately 50 people have reportedly been arrested in Danbury alone, with additional arrests reported in Stamford and Bridgeport.

What I find particularly disturbing are reports that ICE agents waited until children boarded their school buses before taking their parents into custody.

Think about what that means. A mother or father puts their child on the bus, watches it pull away, and then is taken away by federal agents. That is devastating for the parent, but imagine being the child. You go to school expecting your mother or father to be home when you return, only to find an empty house and no understanding of where they are, whether they are safe, or whether you will ever see them again.

And before anyone tells me these people must be dangerous criminals, the evidence simply does not support that characterization. ICE has not provided a detailed accounting of those arrested or demonstrated that this operation was primarily targeting hardened or violent criminals. The reporting instead describes a broad immigration-enforcement operation involving workers, day laborers, parents and people whose primary violation may be their immigration status.

Some may have criminal records. We don't know. But "undocumented immigrant" and "hardened criminal" are not synonymous, and pretending they are is both intellectually dishonest and deeply dangerous.

Then I think about my great-grandparents who were Jewish residents of Germany who were arrested, abducted or simply disappeared in the middle of the night by the Nazi’s. They were not criminals. They were people who were stripped of their rights and their humanity by a government that had convinced much of its population that Jewish people were somehow less deserving. They were ultimately sent away and exterminated in the concentration camps. 

We all know the poem. We have read the books. We know where unchecked dehumanization can lead.

And yet I watch people being taken away from their families, sometimes after putting their children on a school bus, while others cheer because they believe these people somehow deserve it. I find this disturbing and immoral.

I am not arguing that we cannot enforce our immigration laws. Of course we can. I am arguing that how we enforce those laws matters. A person who violates immigration law does not stop being a human being. Someone who lacks legal immigration status is not garbage to be discarded or an inconvenience to be removed. They are a person who works, pays rent, raises children, sends those children to school and tries to build a better life for their family.

And when the government takes away someone's liberty, we should demand transparency, due process and accountability, regardless of whether we agree with that person's immigration status.

What troubles me most is the willingness of some people to accept cruelty when it is directed at people they believe don't belong. That is not what makes America great.

America is great when the government is constrained by law. It is great when we defend due process even for people with whom we disagree. It is great when we recognize that every human being deserves dignity. And it is certainly not made great by making children afraid that their parents may disappear while they are at school.

My family learned what can happen when governments convince ordinary people that certain human beings are less deserving of rights than everyone else.

I refuse to forget that lesson.

I refuse to celebrate the disappearance of another human being simply because that person was born somewhere else.

This isn't about whether you support or oppose immigration. It is about what kind of country we choose to be, and what we are willing to tolerate in our name.

For me, watching parents disappear after putting their children on a school bus is not something to celebrate.  It is something to condemn.