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Forty-six years ago I was teaching Spanish up north at the first public high school in America.
One day at the beginning of the school year, a student came to tell me there was a boy from Spain visiting and would I like to talk with him? It was before the first class, so I said yes.
Juan Carlos, 15 years old, appeared and he was so impressive I asked if he would like to teach my classes that day.
So began a life-long odyssey with Juan Carlos and my family, because we invited him to live with us for the year while he attended our high school, and he became my beloved “Spanish son” to this day.
He came back to the States to attend Warren Wilson College in N.C., graduating as best soccer player of that year in N.C., and he went on to get a PhD in parasitology at Chapel Hill.
Now if that had happened at this time, under the Trump administration, we would never have invited him to stay with the threat of ICE coming in the middle of the night or on the street with masks on to whisk him away not only to jail but maybe even El Salvador or some other foreign country.
My fury about the 300 foreign grad students who have been treated in such a manner or worse, so far, knows no bounds right now.
Where is the due process promised by our Constitution?
Wiped, gone under this administration.
People have asked me why I haven’t been writing more letters to the editor recently and the answer is my fury at our leaders, including our own representative to Congress and our two senators, who have helped paved the way for this terrible democracy-threatening situation that our country finds itself facing by voting for the likes of Pete Hegseth, totally unqualified people.
There have been so many letters I could have written, especially about our Department of Education (and remember that only Congress can dissolve a department, not DOGE or president), the department that helps all our rural disabled children here in Stanly and so much more, now off the table.
Let this story remind all of us that we must stand up for our freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution. Without them, our country is no longer the “beacon on the hill” as Reagan and others have said.
Get out on April 5 with people all over the country to protest, write letters, call your Congress people and the leaders in Raleigh.
Do not give up our freedoms.
Nancy C. Bryant
Norwood

PS: And if ICE comes to get me for writing this letter, I hope there might be one brave soul in Stanly County who would stand up with me.