She's Gone

She was taken from the street in front of her daughter's new home.

They had an order of deportation.  There was nothing to be done.

She was allowed a phone call, the phone call the family had been fearing.  It was as awful as they had imagined.

Through tears, they moved on to Plan B, the option the immigration attorney had urged her to think about, to plan for, to have ready.  Her tio on the other side would meet her.  Her girls would bring her clothes and supplies tomorrow.  From there...... who knows.  The plan was just that - a plan.  No one wanted or expected to use it.

Except that she was taken from the street early in the morning and by noon she was in Nogales.  Two hours that changed everything.

She came here 25 years ago, when border crossings were fluid, when the back and forth of workers and families was not viewed as criminal, but was accepted as the normal course of events.  When a path toward citizenship began to be discussed, she started putting money aside to pay her back taxes, taxes she'd have been happy to pay if the government had made it possible for her to do so without endangering her undocumented status.  She was eager to participate in the economy, to share in the dream.  She asked for nothing from anyone.

As the American attitude toward immigrants changed, so did her status.  She began to live dark - moving in with friends and family so her name would not appear on a lease, putting her cell phone and her car in her daughters' names, driving just at the speed limit, making full stops before turning right on red, remembering to signal before changing lanes.

She stopped putting money aside for back taxes; it didn't seem as if the government was anxious for her to move in that direction.... the direction of honesty, transparency, truth.  They wanted her gone.  Not contributing, not helping, just gone.

Last week a family in our town was pulled over because their car windows were tinted darker than the law allows.  A mother and father and two tweens were taken and deported, leaving two younger children behind.  It made the papers.  Everyone was sad.

This case didn't make the papers.  It just made everyone sad.

How is the world a better place because my friend is no longer here?  My country hurt someone I love, on a day when the DHS Secretary fled the scene, when a self-hating Jew in the White House, a man whose own family is disgusted by his behavior, is told by POTUS that he is in charge, on a day when our tax returns arrived from the accountant.

I'm thrilled to send money to Washington right now.  Absolutely thrilled.