“Abolish Ice”, a sign captured in the Free Lance photo featured in the coverage of the protest at the Gilroy construction site for an ICE detention center. Of course we don’t want our spinach, carrots, onions and garlic spoiled by a police state. I easily observe farm workers picking and packing lettuce in the hot sun.
Yet we are persecuting these people! Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE according to this paper are constructing a facility close by in Gilroy on Holsclaw Road. I am grateful for the protest on June 14 that accomplished a temporary halt to the construction.
Farmworkers pay taxes. These workers pay state taxes and federal taxes including Social Security taxes because work for wages is subject to all taxes.
Yet these hard workers can never benefit from their taxes because they are not citizens and they have no way of becoming a citizen even though they may have lived and worked here for years. These workers are true Americans.
When hate and prejudice overtake our hearts we quickly forget that hardworking individuals feed us and take care of us when we are sick. They also clean our houses and hotels when we travel.
So why do we deny them citizenship? Strange thinking when we realize that we are all immigrants. I would be a second generation citizen on my father’s side; my children would then be third generation citizens on their mother’s father’s side and third generation citizens on their father’s mother’s side. Birthright citizenship saves us all.
We could learn how to be true human beings from our immigrants. By simply allowing our laws to provide paths to citizenship gives us a chance to practice putting our humanity into reality, especially when we are supposed to be “The Land of the Free.”
Mary Zanger
Hollister
Another banger from Zanger, thank you Mary!
Well said, keep it up! Immigrants contribute so much to our country, in all aspects of society (agriculture, business, construction, education, healthcare, landscaping, outdoors, restaurants, and much more)
💯 🙏