When Woody Guthrie sang, “This land was made for you and me,” he could not have imagined the legal labyrinth to the American Dream for immigrants.
Most of my clients are immigrants who have never hired an attorney until they meet me after a work injury. Most are North Carolinians living quiet lives, devoted to work, family, and faith, people with little reason to interact with immigration agencies, until suddenly their friends, coworkers, employees, or community members are swept up by them.
Whatever one’s politics, many are troubled by what they see happening to immigrant families, not just the what, but the how of it all.
When Senators Ted Budd and Thom Tillis recently voiced concerns about the impact of immigration enforcement, it caught my attention. I’m not sure people fully realize how essential immigrant labor is to NC’s economy.
Foreign-born workers harvest crops through the NC Growers Association’s H 2A program. Farmers often consider these workers as family. Immigrants contribute to our economy as roofers, farmworkers, framers, hospitality workers, white-collar professionals, and caregivers; many of these people raise families here.
The Other Side
Ask North Carolinians about the videos documenting the ICE shooting deaths of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, and you may hear exactly opposite interpretations of the same footage.
On social media, you’ll see George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 quoted: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” But are we losing the opportunity to engage with the other side as more complex humans when we paint the other side with a broad brush?
An unexpected voice of dissent recently emerged from the border; Judge Fred Biery from McAllen, Texas. Judge Biery ordered 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos detained in Minneapolis and sent to Texas, to be reunited with his father after a widely covered immigration operation that resulted in the boy being separated from his family.
Judge Biery reasoned: “The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children. This Court and others regularly send undocumented people to prison and order them deported but do so by proper legal procedures.
“Ultimately, Petitioners may, because of the arcane United States immigration system, return to their home country, involuntarily or by self-deportation. But that result should occur through a more orderly and humane policy than currently in place.”
In his order, he included a widely seen photo of the detained child in a blue toboggan and cited verses from Christian scripture: “Let the little children come to me…” and then, fittingly, “Jesus wept.”
A Chilling Moment
The reader might expect hopeful guidance toward a humane path forward, or for me to say that one day we will pass comprehensive immigration reform that fixes all of this. I’m not that voice, and I do not think that is possible in our country right now. We’re in a chilling moment, subpoenas are being issued to social media companies for criticism of ICE, and enforcement surges like the one in Minneapolis that may end there but will likely reappear somewhere else. And I am not being dramatic when I say I’ve considered whether there will be consequences for me writing this article one day.
What we need right now is realism. We have a serious problem with how we talk about and interact with immigrants and refugees in our daily lives. We see immigrants in our churches, our restaurants, at grocery stores, and at school drop-offs, and yet we often fail to acknowledge just how similar we really are.
I believe that’s what Judge Fred Biery wanted us to think about. We’re in one giant mess, and the only way out is our shared humanity.
