Sick at heart

My sleeping shirt this week is a U. S. Border Patrol T-shirt given me years ago by a friend of my son who had just joined the BP. He was, incidentally, a native of Columbia who was a U.S. citizen. He handed ashirt to everyone in the family and said, “Don’t wear this in the Miami airport.” Today, I wouldn’t wear it outside the privacy of my bedroom, but it is much-washed, soft, loose and comfortable. So I sleep in it. And tonight I fear it will bring me bad dreams.

I’m afraid I conflate ICE and the Border Patrol, but I have it figured out. The Border Patrol deals with newly arrived immigrants—and, oh boy, do I have thoughts on that, but they’re for another post. ICE, of the two the most malignant, goes after immigrants—brown skin only, please note—who are living amongst us. I’m not sure I can express tonight my outrage over the sweeping raids promised for this weekend in targeted cities. Nor am I sure why trump has given so much warning about when and where, but I hope it has given targeted individuals time to get a game plan and, if possible, hide away from their homes. I also hope that they know they do not have to open the door to ICE.

Targeted individuals are apparently those who have missed asylum hearings. Could we have a little compassion here? Many of these people speak little or no English and have little understanding of our judicial system. They are probably terrified to show up at official proceedings. And I have heard stories of people who regularly turned up at their annual meeting, only to be grabbed and deported. 

ICE waits like vultures to pounce on these people, tear their families apart, traumatize their children. I read a case history this week of a couple who were apprehended on their way to work. They have young children and jobs and a house they’re paying a mortgage on. They pay their taxes—did you know illegal immigrants paid billions in taxes last year while trump paid zero, squat, nothing? This couple has asylum petitions that have been pending for years. They have gone to all hearings, done everything required—and they’re picked up.

A neighbor who told the story said it was like they had disappeared from the face of the earth. ICE denied any record of them, then forbad anyone to see them. And this weekend ICE will add an estimated 2,000 families to this proud record. What kind of a nation are we?

Most immigrants, even illegal, have built honest lives as citizens who contribute to their communities, pay their taxes, raise their families. And our government is hounding and terrorizing them. Statistics time and again show that, contrary to trump’s outrageous claims, very few are criminals—and none are animals. They are honest people who want a better life for their children and are willing o work for it.

The Houston chief of police, scornful of the promised raids, said they should catch crooks, not cooks. A great line.

If these people are illegal, they are not getting the benefits of citizenship, no matter what the alt-right says. They have the obligations--taxes, etc., but they do not get welfare, social security, Medicaid or Medicare, child care benefits—none of it.

And trump’s program, which causes him to gloat unbecomingly, is not as he claims an extension of what went on under Clinton and Obama—notice he skipped Bush, who did, like Obama, have a minimal deportation program for crminals. Clinton’s presidency is almost irrelevant to this issue, and under Obama only hardened criminals were targeted for deportation. The few cases in which children were detained separately involved such serious crimes as drugs, trafficking, etc.

Today, it is a whole new ball game, and come Monday your neighbor or mine may well have disappeared. I weep for them, their children, and our country.