During an immigration forum in Sacramento, California, holocaust survivor Bernard Marks took to the mic to deliver some powerful words to acting ICE Director Thomas Homan, who was invited to speak to residents in attendance (video below).
The 87-year-old used the opportunity to slam ICE policies that – in conjunction with the Trump administration’s decidedly inhumane agenda – targets undocumented immigrants during innocuous tasks and seeks to deport them. Many of these people are Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients who were brought to the United States as children, have known no life outside this country, and already have families here.
Despite the fact that a staggering 70 percent of Americans believe those who benefit from the DACA program should remain in the United States, the Trump administration has effectively waged war on the approximately 800,000 “DREAMers,” as they are often referred, causing them to live each day in fear of it being the last with their husbands, wives, children, and loved ones.
Marks wasted no time in drawing the comparison between these policies and those that nearly took his own life decades ago at the hands of the Nazis.
“When I was a little boy in Poland, for no other reason but for being Jewish, I was hauled off by the Nazis. And for no other reason I was picked up and separated from my family, who was exterminated in Auschwitz. And I am a survivor of Auschwitz and Dachau.”
“I spent five and a half years in concentration camps, for one reason and one reason only—because we picked on people, and you as the sheriff, who we elected as sheriff of this county—we did not elect you for sheriff of Washington, D.C. It’s about time you side with the people here. And when this gentleman [acting ICE Director Thomas Homan] stands up there and says he doesn’t go after people, he should read today’s Bee. Because in today’s Bee, the Supreme Court Justice of California objected to ICE coming in and taking people away from the courts. Don’t tell me that this is a lie.”
“You stand up here Mr. Jones. Don’t forget—history is not on your side.”
The crowd’s reaction speaks volumes. Trump and his racist shills may feel justified in executing their inhumane agenda now, but thwarting the will of the American people is going to have unprecedented consequences at the polls in November.
Watch the entire speech below:
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