Around Brimfield: How to help your community, even when you're snowed in

Ben Wolford’s thoughtful comments about “values that we should be able to agree on” reminded me of why I allowed him to talk me into reviving the Around Brimfield column a few years ago. Freedom, safety, respect, dignity, decency, diversity and seeing others as neighbors – I share those values and find comfort in knowing that most of The Portager readers share them as well. If we are to “hold the line” as Ben suggests, we cannot be complacent or naïve.

The lack of civility is creeping into our county through those who have been elected to protect us, and it weighs heavily on my heart. What is happening in Minneapolis and Columbus could easily happen here. On Dec. 19, a Columbus NBC4 News headline read, “They fled the Taliban and were allowed in the U.S.; now, ICE is arresting them in Columbus”. This was personal to us, because it was about one of our Afghani friends. J (name withheld) and his family fled to Iran after the Taliban terrorist group seized control of Afghanistan in 2021. The full story of their journey would make an intense and harrowing movie, but they finally thought it would be a “happily ever after” ending when they made it to the U.S. and applied for asylum. Instead, a week before Christmas, it turned into a horror movie plot when J received a summons with little explanation to report to the ICE office with his family’s passports and documentation of legal residence.