Dear Editor,
After dropping off food donations at Kingman Democratic office where I was warmly greeted by friendly Democrats. I went to do a little Christmas shopping when I ran into someone I know. The dearest and sweetest person, strong in her Christian faith and always with a warm smile. A wisp of a woman, petite and soft-spoken, she always made me feel I was in good company with someone with a good heart and a kind soul.
No doubt why she was loved and well respected by residents and staff at the care facility where she has worked at for years, while she and her husband raised sons now college educated with children of their own. A blessed life they both worked hard for. Until now.
She told me they had been notified by Homeland Security they had to leave the U.S. My holiday spirits were dashed, and I wasn’t able to thin about anything else. It was jarring to hear this could b happening to her and her husband. It’s bad enough knowing it’s happening to others but when it happens to someone that you know personally it really drives it home how terribly wrong with what is happening today. Wrong that it’s not taken into account that they have lived here for decades, both green card holders. It just doesn’t make sense. As I have been saying since this mass deportation began the unfairness of it is unthinkable that it’s happening without any due process given.
You’re just expected to leave or they’ll come for you. Separating her and her husband was my friend’s worst fear if they tried to go through legal avenues in an attempt to stay. Knowing ICE is abducting those who try to use our legal system and didn’t feel it was an option for them. Although my friend and her husband are entitled to legal representation and certainly are not criminals and gangbangers but this is what Trump ordered.
It reminds me of a man I know who would punish all his children including his wife if one did something wrong. That’s what tyrants do. They inflict pain on everyone regardless of who di what and why or, did anything at all. It’s hard to like or respect someone when they are mean and cruel and unfair. I didn’t like that man, nor do I Donald Trump. His name calling and demeaning others and in the case calling immigrants ‘garbage’ is just ignorant when he doesn’t even know my friend and her husband.
And the irony of it while he’s using pardons to forgive corruption and violent crimes, he’s deporting and forcing people like my friend and her husband into detention facilities less equipped than regular prisons. Punishing them just because they’ve chosen to make a life in America.
My friend and her husband are the kind of people we want living here and in our little town of Kingman. And it is our loss now that they are gone. But however one sees it, right or wrong or fair or unfair, when taking all things into consideration we can spare a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering. No one should ever have to experience what my friend and her husband and thousands of others are going through … being rejected by the country you love and you’ve given your life to. Regardless if you are a citizen or not.
J.M.
