Creeping Authoritarianism A Personal

My background is largely the reason I joined the U.S. military after finishing college and why I opted to serve in the U.S. intelligence community after completing my military service.

I fell in love with the United States the moment I stepped foot on US soil in January 1980. I didn’t know why. I was only eight years old at the time, but I even then I felt there was something very different about this country compared with the one where I was born.

I was born in what was then known as the USSR – in Ukraine – where as a little Jewish kid, I was a second-class citizen.

My family could not freely practice our faith. My father – a deeply religious man today – had never stepped foot in a synagogue and the tears of joy he described upon being able to finally become a religious Jew in the United States gave me butterflies. As a child, I did not know what a “Jew” was, even as I faced disdain and abuse in kindergarten, and later, in school for my “Jew” last name.

I was beaten. I was not allowed to use the bathroom until my bladder felt like it would explode because I was, to them, a “dirty Jew.” While the other kids in kindergarten were napping in little sleeping bags with cute designs on them, I was forced to sit on a hard, wooden chair until everyone else woke up.

Later, in first and second grade, I saw a Jewish boy savagely beaten by our classmates because he dropped a small, red star pin with a picture of Vladimir Lenin on the floor. He was apparently guilty of two egregious crimes: 1) dropping a likeness of Lenin onto the floor – an ultimate sign of disrespect – and 2) of being a Jew.

As Jews, my family was a band of outsiders to be passed over for promotions at work, to be forced into jobs in which we were not interested, and to be the subjects of abuse and disdain at every turn.

When my parents decided to leave the country and immigrate initially to Israel (later hopping a “wrong” train and seeking asylum in the United States), they were denied exit by the Soviet authorities several times.

When we were finally granted permission to leave, we were forced to give up nearly everything we owned. I had a few outfits, a small transistor radio, and a few books, which I knew by heart by then. My parents also were allowed very few possessions, and at the border crossing in a town called Chop in western Ukraine, I had the unique experience of having a Soviet rifle pointed at my face by a border guard who blocked a doorway through which my father was taken for a search.

Is it any wonder that I had a completely different feeling when I first entered the United States? Is it any wonder that I wanted to serve this incredible country that not only took me in, but also allowed me every opportunity to achieve, succeed, and become anything I dreamed?

Fast forward to the present.

I’m horrified at what is happening to my country today.

Somehow, we have become a country where masked immigration “authorities” terrorize children on Halloween. Somehow, we have become a country where not just legal immigrants, but also US citizens, are seized off the streets by ostensibly immigration agents who obscure their faces.

Somehow, we have become a country in which unnamed “authorities” threaten bystanders who oppose their tactics. Somehow, we have become a country where the highest court in the land rules that it’s acceptable for immigration agents to take race into consideration when conducting sweeps. Somehow, we have become a country that seizes US citizens, questioning their legal status and presence in the United States, based on their race.

As someone who was persecuted based on my “Jew” last name in an authoritarian hellhole that was the Soviet Union, I can see the similarities, and they are morally abhorrent.

As a former national security official, I agree that our borders must be protected. I understand the national security implications and dangers of unchecked and untracked individuals being allowed to roam freely. Yes, criminal and terrorist organizations can and do exploit loopholes to enter the United States and plan operations targeting Americans. Yes, several of the terrorists who planned and executed the 9/11 attacks against the United States overstayed their visas or violated the terms of their student visas. Yes, some are involved in fraud, terrorism financing, or other crimes.

But this…

Seizing US citizens or lawful US residents off the streets merely for how they look or views that oppose the current administration…

Unconstitutionally depriving lawfully present aliens of due process…

Arresting government officials for opposing views…

Snatching people off the streets based on how they look…

This is becoming the country I fled, not the America I fell in love with as a child and served as an adult.

The author is a US Army veteran, who also spent 12 years in the intelligence community focusing on counterterrorism and illicit finance issues. The author is a member of The Steady State.

Founded in 2016, The Steady State is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization of more than 340 former senior national security professionals. Our membership includes former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on deep expertise across national security disciplines including intelligence, diplomacy, military affairs and law, we advocate for constitutional democracy, the rule of law and the preservation of America’s national security institutions.