To the editor:

Horrifying does not even begin to describe what’s happening in Minnesota. ICE is charged with enforcing immigration laws inside the U.S. They do not have the legal authority to civilly detain American citizens. And yet, our people are being detained, threatened and brutalized. We are being asked to present papers showing our legal status. Think about that. In your lifetime, when has this been considered normal? Are we a free society if we are asked to present papers to show we belong?

Our own federal government has launched an attack on its people. They have deployed paramilitary to our cities. Minnesota is referred to as “occupied.” I wish this was hyperbole. It is not. The videos of Americans being dragged through the streets, assaulted, and brutalized feel endless. A person’s window being broken, ICE officers punching them in the head and dragging them to unmarked vehicles. High school students thrown to the ground and teachers detained. People dragged from their place of work while they shout we’re American citizens, I have my passport. ICE asking people if we’ve “learned our lesson yet” after the killing of Renee Good.

American citizens exercising their constitutional rights to peaceful assembly and protest as well as acting as legal observers are being pepper sprayed, tear gassed, assaulted and dragged to detainment facilities. I understand the urge to want to explain this away. To want to find fault with the people being detained. To say they are obstructing or violating the law. To rationalize that this would not happen to you because you are a legal and lawful citizen. And yet, it is happening to legal and lawful citizens.

My mom said it best, “the question we must all ask ourselves is clear. Do you want to live in a Democracy where infractions of established laws are adjudicated in courts by judges and juries of our peers, or a system of vigilante justice where the government weaponizes it’s agents and the military to shoot to kill.” This is our present and it is not OK. We must do everything in our power to ensure this is not the future.

Megan M. Benage

New Ulm