Free speech issue is a diversion

America today is engaged in a historic struggle, testing whether the nation’s principles of freedom and unalienable rights can exist for millions of immigrants. Their freedom, their rights, are under attack.

The Trump administration is conducting a racial purge, a campaign of mass deportations against America’s Latino and Muslim immigrant communities. Immigrants who have lived peacefully in America for many years are being driven from their homes and families. This unfolding human catastrophe is the single greatest threat to all freedom and all rights in our nation.

But some of Trump’s supporters — anti- immigrant demagogues and even fringe fascist elements — are seeking to change the subject of discourse to a different sort of freedom, one that shows no signs of being in peril: the “free speech” of the anti- immigrant demagogues. It is a dishonest, hypocritical diversion.

The anti- immigrant demagogues organize followers all over the country, and speak incessantly. Their right to speak is effusively defended by every branch of government, by the politicians of both political parties, by every police department and by every major news outlet, including USA TODAY. The entire issue is a straw man.

There is no government plot to abridge or abolish the free speech rights of the anti- immigrant bigots; the real question is whether there will be anyone left to speak against them.

The objective of these antiimmigrant demagogues is to repress and ultimately silence the free speech of the growing Resistance: the mass movement for immigrant rights.

Today, the only true defense of freedom and equality rests on the shoulders of America’s “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” To the growing movement for immigrant rights that has mobilized in the streets and is braving the storms of persecution, and to the millions of immigrants who are fighting for their rights against a vicious campaign of scapegoating, the following declaration must be made: Your very presence makes America the home of the brave — fighting together, we will make it the land of the free.