To The Editor:
A few thoughts on Donald Trump’s immigration/refugee (but not Muslim) ban.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
— Emma Lazarus, inscription on the Statue of Liberty.
“The only thing we can offer up in opposition to the current transformation of our communities ... is an absurd, unfounded faith that another state of affairs is possible. Will we be able to infect others with our dreams before we find ourselves again deprived of voice – returned, perhaps, to prison?”
— Nadya Tolokonnikova, Russian political prisoner jailed by Putin.
“I brake for hallucinations.” (My all-time favorite bumper sticker.)
Finally, in 1939, 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany aboard the ocean liner St. Louis were denied entry to the U.S. and sent back to Europe where 254 eventually perished in the holocaust. Not our finest hour! We can and should do better.
Paul Hanke
Warren
