It’s a real shame that Nancy Chesley in her May 5 word salad of xenophobia and vitriol, “Legal immigrants have no reason to fear deportation,” feels the need to parrot the same litany of demeaning tropes and malarkey about immigrants the former president, now criminal defendant, spewed on Day 18 of his election interference trial upon leaving the courtroom, May 14, and isn’t more welcoming of naturalized U.S. citizens and their sentiments and travails in being here in a new country and culture. To quote the former guy: “Why do we want all these people from s–t-​hole countries coming here?”

I was impressed with columnist Abdi Nor Iftin’s eloquent piece that Chesley savaged (“Stop shouting about deportation – we are patriots and we’re here to stay,” April 23), and contrary to her biased opinion I found it quite moving and poignant, as was his piece published the week of May 10, “College protests in the U.S. a ray of hope for Gazans,” and his recounting of memories of his post-9/11 experience of bombings and civilian devastation in his native Somalia at the hands of another military aggressor akin to the situation in present-day Palestine. As a U.S. citizen by birth, I was at liberty to exercise my – taken for granted at that time as a privileged young white man – First Amendment right to protest (Vietnam “War”) without the fear of deportation that Iftin speaks of, and disagree with Chesley’s contention that demonstrations against the ongoing Israeli genocide have anything to do with “actions and hateful rhetoric” (sic) nor are they necessarily antisemitic.

Jon St. Laurent
Windham