Anonymous ICE

To the editor:

As I was watching yet another news broadcast from Minneapolis this evening, graphically showing the actions of anonymous, masked, and armed ICE and Border Patrol Agents, I recalled something that happened in 1962 when I was 11 or 12.

My family was living in base housing in Germany due to my father’s military assignment, and an elderly German relative, first cousin to my grandmother, was visiting us. My father came home in his uniform, probably the first time my “Uncle Hermann” had seen him in it. Our cousin tapped the nameplate on my dad’s uniform and said, “Das ist gut!”

I bet most Fayette County readers can translate that. That elderly man who had lived through 20th century German history, who in fact had served in the German navy during both World Wars, recognized that authority should never be anonymous.

And yet, in American neighborhoods, there are agents of our government in generic riot garb bundling non-citizens and citizens alike into unmarked cars. You think it can’t happen here?

I would like to think that Texans would stand up to misused authority to protect their neighbors, employees, relatives, and friends from the kinds of abuse we are seeing on the evening news. It might actually happen anywhere.

Rebecca Hegar La Grange