To the Editor:
Some of my family were illegal immigrants to this land.
In 1620.
They arrived unannounced, and there was no one to stop them from getting off their ship and settling in.
Thirteen generations later, my father was a soldier in World War II in the Eighth Army Air Force, stationed in England. He met and married my mother, the widow of an RAF pilot. My father’s grandfather was in the Union Army, in the American Civil War. That person’s great-great grandfather was a soldier in the Revolutionary War. My family has been in this country since before it was a country. Fortunately, bone spurs do not run in our family.
I was born in the U.K. Under the 1940 Nationality Act, I have U.S. citizenship at birth because my father was an American soldier. That is, unless some third-generation proto-dictator and his quisling Congress try to take it away.
If they can come for the undocumented without due process, they can come for visa holders; they can come for naturalized citizens; they can come for birthright citizens like me. They can come for you. There is no safety in silence.
In 1775, the citizens said, “Enough.” Two hundred and fifty years later, it is time to stop those who want to turn our democracy into an oligarchy.
Or, they can come for you.
Richard Hammond
West Tisbury
