The open letter [“Lost Our Humanity,” Gazette Packet, Nov. 29] to U.S. Rep. Don Beyer and Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine characterizes President Trump's border protection measures as "appalling hate crimes" when in fact they are merely measures to protect our border from a mob attempting illegal entry.
The amount of non-lethal force used was proportionate to the risk and necessary to deter breaching existing border barriers and forcing illegal entry (a misdemeanor crime).
Demonstrations in U.S. cities in which police use tear gas, for example, sometimes only generate "disorderly conduct" misdemeanor convictions. The fact that those attempting illegal entry brought children with them, functioning as de facto "human shields", or for that matter subjected children to a harrowing thousand mile journey might easily be construed as child abuse were it done inside the country by U.S. residents.
The Trump Administration is processing the caravan members' asylum claims deliberately to assure they are bona fide which many, likely most, will not be because applicants must show that their government (not miscellaneous thugs) is directly responsible for the harms they allege. The fact that Mexico offered them asylum and most caravan members rejected Mexico's offer strongly suggests that applying for U.S. asylum is a strategy to game the system to gain entry the the U.S. when their real motivation is economic or otherwise does not qualify as asylum.
Caravan members rushing our border barriers to attempt to illegally enter our country, rather than waiting for immigration authorities to consider their cases, calls into question whether they would be law-abiding residents.
Far from "appalling hate crimes", our government is merely exercising due diligence and attempting to maintain civic order and due process.
Dino Drudi
Alexandria