Wisdom Quest Arts and Coaching

He was pulled over in his landscaping truck. Immigration authorities demanded his papers. He said, “I do not have them with me. My wife can bring them here. Please.”

They grabbed him, threw him into the back of their vehicle, and carted him down to the border where they dumped him off on the Mexican side, leaving all he loved and all he owned on the U.S. side.

This young man had been in the midst of our citizenship process. He had legal papers to work with the landscaping company. Immigration did not file a deportation. Since there is no record, no proof of any sort, they can claim he abandoned his citizenship process by leaving the country when explicitly warned not to do so. Our laws dictate he cannot return.

On the other side of the border, in Chula Vista, lives his 8-month pregnant wife, my housekeeper. She will soon not be able to work for several months and had counted on her husband to provide for her during the first few months of the baby’s life. Now her son whom had been accepted into an out-of-state college has been forced to abandon his dream and go to work to provide for his mother and her baby.

 My housekeeper appealed to his boss, the owner of the landscaping company, to help her out. He began taking the steps. Immigration showed up at his door. “If you open your mouth, we’ll find a way to shut your business down.”

This man does not employ anyone illegal. All Latinos who work for him have the legal right to be here. Though he feared they would find a way, through deceit, to close his livelihood. He remains quiet.

In shock, the young man languishing across the border did not get any information. He has no names, no license plate, only the story of a serious civil rights violation.

His baby will be born in about another six weeks. His wife will go through her labor without him. He will not be there to experience his young son’s delivery.

His wife cannot even cross the border to be with him. She is almost complete with her citizenship application. If she leaves the country, she must be willing to leave permanently.

How many other Latinos are experiencing this? Ripped from their families. Young children are even coming home from school to no parents. Latinos are being pulled over on highways and treated inhumanely as a routine now, especially in the areas closest to the border.
So many people encouraged hard-working Mexican people to come here to work and improve their lives. They’ve toiled and given to the point of nothing left to give. What do we give them? Fatherless children.

We’ve slapped the very hands we’ve asked to work to the bones. What will it take to notice the similarities between the treatment of the Latino people and the atrocities of the Nazis in Germany? It started out with demanding Jews carry their cards everywhere. This same thing is happening with the Latinos and their ‘papers.’

Have we forgotten that we are a nation founded on immigration? What will it take to still the hatred; the fear which has run amuck in the hearts of people?