Following is ONE story about what is happening in America as a result of “our’ president’s deportation regime. This story is told in: “Confronting thenReality of Deportation in a Conservative Town”. [ Nicholas Kristof; New York Times; 7/20/25 ]. Excerpts follow. Read the article!!!
1]. “Voters here in Oregon’s rural Yamhill County have backed Donald Trump for three presidential elections in a row..”
2]. “Then last month ICE detained Moises Sotelo, a beloved but undocumented Mexican immigrant who has lived in the county for 31 years and owns a vineyard management company employing 10 people…Sotelo was a pillar of his church and won a wine industry award – yet he was detained for 5 weeks and on Friday his family believed he was in transit and being deported to Mexico.”
3]. “Moises’ story just really shook our community,’ Elise Yarnell Hollamon, the City council president in Newberg, Sotelo’s hometown, told me. “Everyone knows him, and he has built a reputation within our community over the last few decades.”
4]. “The result has been an outpouring of support for Sotelo…More than 2,200 people have donated to a Gofundme for the family, raising more than $150,000 for legal and other expenses, and neighbors have been dropping off meals and offering vehicles and groceries.”
5]. “Bubba King, a county commissioner, put it this way: “We want tighter border security”. but also humane treatment of families.”
6]. “Judging from what unfolded here..voters may have wanted a tightening of the border and the deportation of criminals – but not the arrest of a longtime neighbor. They wanted Trump to pursue gangsters, not destory small businesses.”
7]. “Trump’s policy in his first term – which included ripping children from their parents and then losing track of 1,360 of those children…”
8]. “A rule of thumb is that whenever the foreign-born share of a population surges to somewhere around 15 percent, there is discontent. In the United States, the foreign-born share has tripled since 1970 and is now around 15 percent.”
9]. “No one makes excuses for Sotelo’s driving drunk. but one offense decades ago should not define his life.”
10]. “Even for Americans who welcomed more deportations, there’s something chilling about the militarization of the crackdown and echoes of police state practices…”
11] “consider also the financial cost of all this. ICE says that “the average cost to arrest, detain and remove an illegal alien is $17,121.” Thus the administration’s goal of one million deportations would cost $17 billion – and presumably be repeated annually..”
12] “Trump has more than tripled the annual ICE budget to $28 billion, making it the most expensive law enforecement agency in the federal government.”
13]. “Trump is also using officials from other law enforcement agencies to build a deportation army, meaning that fewer law enforcement officers are left to deal with homegrown criminals.’ [READ THIS AGAIN – Trump’s ignoring REAl criminals to make a big show of arresting NON-CRIMINALS ]
14]. “Here in Yamhill County, an agricultural area, there is also widespread concern that mass deportation will hurt the economy, with shortages of agricultural workers already reported.”
15]. “The Peterson Institute for International Economics calculated last year that mass deportation could cause a G.D.P. in 2028 to be 7.4 percent lower than it would be otherwise.”
16]. “Only 35 percent of americans approve of Trump’s handling of immigration…”
17]. “Trump is damaging America’s economy, Shattering families, and destroying small businesses.”
With Justice For All 