Speaking Up for My Friends

I have a friend who is in our country illegally. He’s one of the most honest, hard-working, resourceful men I know. He came here years ago in a desperate attempt to care for his family. Upon arrival, he applied for an IRS ID number so he could pay his taxes — think about that for a second. And my friend pays a fair bit of taxes because he works crazy hard, much harder than many of us who were born here. “He should have immigrated the right way,” we say. Sure, fair enough. But he didn’t. And he didn’t because he was trying to care for his family – what would I be willing to do if I needed to provide for Miska and the boys? And my friend’s been in our community for years now, made a life with us, become a neighbor. He’s the guy who’s helping out others who need a job, making our community a better place.

And yet under the current system (which they say is going to be getting even more difficult), there’s no viable way for him to make his citizenship right that wouldn’t decimate them. Whatever one thinks about the need for immigration reform (and I’m certain we can do better), if our reform doesn’t include compassion (not to mention gratitude, for crying out loud) for people like my friend, then it’s beneath the American ideal I know and love.

And now one of my friend’s daughters is starting another year of school and continues to tear up the soccer pitch. She’s got a foot that can launch a rocket. Most days, she lives in a low-grade anxiety that her dad is going to get pulled over on the way to one of his jobs and be deported. I can’t imagine what it is to live with that constant drip of fear on top of managing the fact that you know lots of people don’t want you here and on top of wading through all the normal school angst of boys and geometry and looking the right way and all the everyday stuff that makes it so hard to be a kid these days. But here she is, and she’s been here most of her life. By any standard that should matter, she’s American. And now, she has to go to bed at night knowing that DACA might be revoked, that even though she was only a child following her parents and even though the good ol’ USA is the only home she knows, we may very well come looking for her to send her packing.

Whatever immigration reform we envision, if it does not have a wide open door and massive amounts of love and compassion for my friend’s rocket-launching daughter who’s trying to wrangle her class schedule and get to soccer practice on time, then it’s beneath the American ideal I know and love. And what’s crazy is this: what I’m asking for used to be, as recent as the Bush years, a moderate position. How did things get so toxic? Senator Graham (R) who’s been working with Senator Durbin (D) on a bipartisan bill (imagine that!) said, “Who are we? What do we believe? The moment of reckoning is coming. When they write the history of these times, I’m going to be with these kids.”

Me too. I’m going to be with these kids.