By Heidi Altman, Legal Director, Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition
Dear Opponent of Comprehensive Immigration Reform:
Do you have a child? Picture that child.
Is it a boy? Then imagine this: Every morning you struggle with the decision whether to send your son to school because you know he may very well be shot on the way home or, maybe worse, convinced to join a gang and kill another child to avoid being killed himself.
Is it a girl? Then imagine this: Every evening when you put your daughter to sleep you plan out the meals you will skip the following day so there might be enough for her to eat.
Now ask yourself: What wouldn’t you do to protect that child, to keep her out of harm’s way, to prevent him from feeling hunger or pain? Can you say with certainty that you wouldn’t make the decision to cross a border – even lacking the proper documentation – in the hopes of bringing that child to safety or a chance at prosperity?
I don’t think you can. And that’s why I believe your premise is flawed. You are offended by the idea of allowing undocumented immigrants a pathway to full membership in our American society. You think immigrants without lawful status are trespassers who should be exiled. You hold these beliefs because you find it easy to judge the millions of immigrants in our midst, and this judgment gives you the moral and political cover you need to support the continuance of a caste system that corrodes our democracy. You judge because it is difficult to instead put yourself in the shoes of others whose life experiences are so different from your own. To have empathy.
With how many immigrants have you spoken to try to understand their life stories? Have you thought about how it feels to know your children will never have the opportunity to go to college? Can you understand the impact of constantly re-experiencing the trauma you suffered as a child when your brother was shot in front of you, and the police did nothing? Do you know what it’s like to celebrate Christmas without your wife or mother or child or sibling, separated by a walled border?
Some immigrants cross the border without papers. Some wait for years to be lawfully reunited with their families. Some pay their taxes every year, working as skilled and unskilled laborers. Some are deported and then return across the border unlawfully. Some are churchgoers, or volunteers, or mentors to troubled youth. All are human. They’ve experienced joy and tragedy and they have lived lives very different from your own.
You can judge them. You can exclaim that they should not be allowed into the exclusive club that is the United States of America, that they should be denied the benefits they need to feed themselves and their children, that they should be required to pay fines that leave them and their children buried in debt. Or, instead, you can reflect. Remember that in the not so distant past your grandparent or great grandparent very likely came to this country as a migrant seeking economic improvement. Generations later, are you really so different from the immigrant who crossed the border so his child might feel safe at night? I doubt that you are.
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