After a two-year hiatus imposed by Covid 19, the big Portuguese Festa in New Bedford is back on.
The Feast of the Blessed Sacrament is the largest Portuguese feast in the world as well as the largest ethnic festival in New England. People come from all over and the area of the Festa is just wall to wall people from Thursday to Sunday celebrating the contribution of immigrants to this country and the city more specifically who continue to come here for what the American Promise offers and with what they can offer it.
This year, however, there will be a big change at least when it comes to the parade.
The riot at his ICE Detention Center in Dartmouth in May of 2020 resulted in the federal government cancelling his ICE detention contract because an investigation of the incident showed that, in spite of the sheriff of Bristol County, Thomas Hodgson, consistently claiming he was the victim and something, something Trump, he had been using excessive force and denying the detainees their civil and human rights.
The treatment of his prisoners ignored the fact that, even if found to have come into the country improperly, that is, at best, a misdemeanor and does not merit torture both physical and mental.
This year, unlike in the past, Sheriff Hodgson will not be able to parade down the street celebrating immigrants by having his ICE squad and ICE command center and van the biggest part of his County Sheriff Office contingent, after the ICE agents spent the night before the Sunday parade randomly checking for undocumented immigrants among the people milling about on the streets surrounding the Festa Grounds, or perhaps heading for the car to go home.
It’s an election year, so whatever he brings to the parade will be an advertisement for him couched as part of his duties while he hopes people forget what he had done that affected people along the parade route.
I sincerely hope that this year, unlike in 2017 when he attended the Festa, he does not wear his badge and his holstered gun as he sips glasses of Madeira wine amidst a massive, crammed together crowd, all members of which, without exception, admire and respect him.
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