The illegal alien advocacy network is in a dismal place. After eight years of calling the shots on immigration policy, they are now in the political wilderness. Under the circumstances, a bit of desperation, even a little hyperbole is to be expected. But Reform Immigration for America (RIFA), has, as Michelle Obama might say, opted to go low. In fact, their response to the Trump administration’s enforcement of U.S. immigration laws is downright offensive.
Their campaign asking those on their mailing list (Yes, I am on their mailing list) to sign a petition to House Speaker Paul Ryan demanding an end to ICE enforcement actions, includes a photo of a mom, a dad, and two young daughters huddled together on a bed reading The Diary of Anne Frank.
The inference could not be more blatant: Carrying out enforcement against people who violate U.S. immigration laws is the modern day equivalent of the Nazis hunting down Jewish families and sending them to their deaths in extermination camps.
Let’s be clear, Anne Frank and her family were Dutch citizens and were forced into hiding and eventually sent to extermination camps solely because of who they were: Dutch Jews.
The symbolic family depicted in RIFA’s photo is not being hunted by anyone. If, as RIFA suggests, they are illegal aliens, they will merely be subject to deportation under the Trump policy if they are found by ICE. If ICE does apprehend them, it will be because they violated legitimate laws that every country on earth has. If ICE seeks to remove them from the country, they will be afforded the opportunity to plead their case before an impartial judge, including making a request for political asylum. If they are not legitimate political refugees, they will be returned to the country of which they are citizens, not sent to a death camp.
Co-opting the symbols of the Holocaust and drawing odious comparisons between the most massive genocide in human history and routine enforcement of immigration laws, enacted by Congress, signed into law by a variety of presidents, and repeatedly upheld by an independent Supreme Court is nothing short of reprehensible.
RIFA should be truly ashamed.