Day in and day out, I am challenged, inspired and educated by the people I meet inside the immigration detention centers, who above all, have taught me this: people are strong.
Among the most fiercely strong people I have met are female immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers. I’ve met women who’ve journeyed through entire countries on foot—alone—in an effort to flee violence that threatened their lives, or in a desire to save their children from becoming gang members. I’ve met women whose bodies have been violated or whose sense of a value as human being has been deeply affronted. And, yet, so often these very same women say to me: I am here today. Let’s fight.
One woman I met recently in an immigration detention center in Maryland exhibited a familiar tenacity. Born in 1992 in Mogadishu, Somalia, “Khalada” grew up in the grit of post-civil war Somalia. She longed for an education, but was not able to gain access to school until she was an early teen. Once in school, she poured herself into her education and persevered through seven years of schooling--enough to qualify her as a teacher. In 2014, she started her work as an educator, teaching English to both boys and girls in primary school. However, her work-- as a woman--teaching English to boys and girls caught the attention of al-Shabaab, who told her that she was marked for death if she continued. Despite these threats, Khalada continued teaching. Tragically, around that same time, two other teachers at Khalada’s school were murdered by al-Shabaab. As the threat of death against Khalada escalated, she and her family decided she needed to leave Somalia. They arranged for her to flee from Somalia to Kenya, from where she eventually embarked on her journey to the US.
Though my work in the detention centers has taught me that people are strong, it has also taught me an equally powerful message: we, as human beings, need each other. More exactly: we need each other to act in kindness. So many of my clients can recount with great gusto the memory of a stranger who offered them hospitality on their journey, or the advocacy of an attorney who affirmed that their lives mattered.
It’s enormously privileged work to enter into the lives of the strong like Khalada and to enter in remembering that we all—each one of ourselves included---need the kindness of others. Enter in! You won’t regret it.
