Cruelty to immigrants will haunt U.S. in future

Upon reading Mallory Moench’s “Dropped charges disrupts immigrant’s life,” Jan. 1, I thought to myself how have we let our government become so mean-spirited?

According to this article, Omar Helalat, originally from Jordan, and who has lived in the United States since age 4, was in his last semester at the University at Albany when he was arrested and placed in immigration detention following a squabble with a girlfriend who apparently has withdrawn her charges of domestic violence and now defends him. The article further states that he was an honor student previously granted Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status, which appears now to have been revoked.

What possible good can come from persecuting this young man?

I feel that our government’s ubiquitous demonization of immigrants, especially nonwhites, is something that will come back to haunt us. Whether it’s children being ripped from parents’ arms and placed in cages on the Mexican border or blindly bureaucratic deportations, are we not unnecessarily creating resentment and hatred that will be spread around the globe in the years to come? Whether it’s children never to be reunited with their families, or dying in custody, or persons dumped into foreign countries where they know neither the language nor culture, egregious damage is being orchestrated. The whole world is watching how we treat these people.

As all this goes on, President Donald Trump gloats that he is protecting us when, in actuality, the opposite is true. The world does not need more division, anger and hate or a silly, ill-conceived wall. What we do need is a very different kind of leadership. ralph J. rahm Slingerlands