.

 

Here’s to hoping everyone can take a minute to breathe and maybe come to middle ground.

 By Jame Norton 

Mayor Curtatone, like other Sanctuary City Mayors, went on the defensive this past week when the new President set his sights on all Sanctuary Cities as being havens for illegal immigrants who commit awful crimes and drain the resources of the community. At first glance, while that might be the case in other cities with the same status, that doesn’t really apply in Somerville. It seems to have worked for the many years it’s been in place here and the growing pains and more serious problems that happened relative to this issue have been long forgotten. That’s good for us, but, I’m not sure that the Mayor taking a “defiant” stance/approach in being defensive is going to be anything more than painting a big red target on the back of this city for a President who is hellbent on shaking things up to take aim at.

 

You see, in reality, it’s a double-edged sword here – in Boston, losing Federal funding for programs as a result of the fight that will happen over the issues surrounding Sanctuary City status will be catastrophic – in Somerville, it won’t be. It will hurt, but it won’t cripple this city – not even close. That’s both a good and a bad thing, because although the Mayor’s liberal-leaning policies aren’t always easy to swallow, he does a great job at running this city – he makes things work in the end. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty to complain about, but, overall in this city, we have it pretty good.

 

With respect to the bigger issue of this past week and the new President’s Executive Order relative to immigration – both sides of this issue need to take a deep breath. First of all, for those who ardently defend President Trump on this issue – it is NOT the same thing that President Obama did, or is the same as what President Carter did. Second, for those who have seemingly lost their minds over the issue get a grip on yourselves – the problem here is that there should have been better preparation for those agencies that needed to deal with the new policy in place, before the policy was enacted.

 

It’s growing pains, if you want to simplify it. It literally inconvenienced 107 non-citizens. That’s it. They weren’t put in shackles and sent to a concentration camp, they weren’t waterboarded and sent to a CIA Black Site, they were fed lunch while people figured out what to do next. Oh and that lawsuit that the crazed people claim put Trump in his place was merely an simple little injunction that pertained to only the people being detained at the airports at that time and in transit at that time. That’s it. Not a big legal victory there, so just stop.

 

Look, I don’t claim to have all the answers, but, common sense dictates that you do yourself a favor and take a few minutes, away from CNN and Fox News and the mainstream media/news outlets to read the actual text of the Executive Order – I have personally witnessed people in the last couple of days, who are as liberal ad crazed as the rest of them, read it and realize that it simply doesn’t do anything except enforce the laws already in place. These are issues that EVERY single person who has run for or been elected President since LBJ has been talking about – better, stricter, immigration laws that are actually enforced. Check the records – Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, so on and so on…and the people who ran against them – all talked about the same things. Now someone is going something about it. Good.

 

Nobody is saying that every immigrant everywhere needs to weep for the future because this country was founded by immigrants – and now everyone should be frightened of being deported. Truth is, if it was me and I was an immigrant, I would be very frightened – if it was my intent to commit a crime. Those who come here, legally or illegally, should make every effort if they’re going to stay here to apply for citizenship – it’s really not as difficult as living in abject poverty or in a war-torn country, I promise. You don’t even need to speak fluent English to be a citizen – they make it THAT easy – then when you commit a crime, you won’t worry about being deported, because as a citizen you can head straight to county or state prison. Enjoy.

 

As far as the protests and the rioting – it’s honestly hard to take any group of people seriously who think the rules don’t apply to them. For example, you can’t stand on your head and demand extreme vetting for simple gun ownership, and then lose your mind when it comes to vetting people entering our country. People have forgotten that not everything is a God given right around here, especially not when it comes to things in this country that need to be higher up on the priority list than they have been in recent memory. I’m referring to how our veterans are treated, how our elderly are treated, widespread homelessness – stuff that is happening right now right here.

 

This country does not need to be the big brother of every other nation on the planet – isn’t that what has gotten us in this mess? It’s not specifically the previous President and it’s definitely not the current one that are to blame either. Rarely does anything a sitting President enacts have instant impact on the individual people of this country. It’s refreshing, don’t you think? If you truly believe this President will be thrown out of office, after only a week and a half, then you probably believe in the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny and that there was a shot at the Electoral College not doing what it was supposed to and elect someone other than Trump.

 

I guess what I am getting at is simple – stop rioting, because this guy isn’t going anywhere. He isn’t going to resign, he isn’t going to be censured and he won’t be impeached – he is actually following through on his campaign promises – and in very short order. How can you be mad at that? He didn’t get elected because Putin pressed a button somewhere – he got elected fair and square, as the system allows – and if he gets reelected because he did a good job, then I would imagine we will all be better people for it – even those who are convinced he will ruin the country.

 

Those are the people who need to get a grip on reality, and try to find common ground – or keep fighting back and find out how fruitless that is. Let me know how that works out for you. #GMK #GTBTP