The Partial Observer by Jennifer Hill

No Defense for Trump Administration's Violent Rhetoric, Tactics

AllOtsego’s June 12 editorial, “No Defense for Violence,” decried “the riots and violence” in Los Angeles while whitewashing and ignoring the Trump administration’s own violent tactics and rhetoric that triggered the L.A. protests and threatened to escalate situation.

The editorial board said the “riots” broke out in response to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arresting people “without formal immigration documentation” as if ICE were conducting normal, routine work. Since Trump’s inauguration, ICE has been arresting and disappearing people off streets, workplaces, farms, during court appearances, and even from their homes. They are not just those without documents, but people with the “formal” documents, who are legal residents and even U.S. citizens. Families have been torn apart, with one parent and children suddenly taken away to border cities, to be deported within hours—even a 4-year-old child with a life-threatening illness.

We just heard that happened in Oneonta on Saturday, June 14, a man getting into his car to go to work when ICE arrested him and wouldn’t let him go back inside his house to show he was here legally, with his “formal immigration documentation.”