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As I write this, I’m sitting on an airplane on my way home from Mexico. I have a large extended family who lives in the central part of the country, up in the mountains. Not really on the way to anywhere. It’s lovely.
So, how did a middle-class white guy like me wind up with family in central Mexico?
Well, in the mid–1960s, my white middle-class grandparents packed up the Wagon Queen Family Truckster, headed south until they hit central Mexico, where they started a children’s home—which is going to celebrate its 50th anniversary on Friday. And in the course of their time running the home, my grandparents had an opportunity to adopt two kids—which they did. My uncles, Juan and David. After my grandparents died, my uncle Juan and my aunt Selene took over the running of the home. They have 26 children at present, all of whom come from families who either couldn’t or wouldn’t take care of them. Over the fifty years, the Casa Hogar de San Juan has been in operation, the home has helped to raise over 250 children.
The first time I visited Mexico I was only a year old. I spent summers there as a kid and I’ve gone to visit almost every year as an adult, stretching back 25 years. My childhood was peopled with Mexican children playing Mexican games and singing Mexican songs. Needless to say, I have hundreds of Mexican aunts, uncles, and cousins. They make a big deal over me when I come down to visit, buying me presents and fixing me special meals. They love my wife and my children, who are also now their relations. It’s pretty great, if you want to know the truth. I’ve been shown unutterable love by my Mexican family since I was an infant. And I love them back.
Which is why I have such a difficult time with the politics of hatred and fear that has taken root in the immigration policy of the United States, as well as in the imagination of some of its citizens. This past week I had to face my family in Mexico as they asked me why our country has gone crazy. What happened to make Americans hate Mexicans so much? Why would the president of my country call them rapists and killers? How could America, which takes such pride in its moral superiority, be satisfied with policies that tear families apart?
Of course, I told them that not all Americans feel that way. In fact, the majority of Americans disapprove of the job the current administration is doing. But what good is that kind of reassurance really? They know people in the States who are being separated from their children—children who’ve been born and raised in America. Parents secreted away under the cover of darkness to detention centers, sometimes hundreds of miles away.
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Most Americans that I know are horrified by the thought that the executive orders that have been signed (and may yet be signed) call for treating undocumented immigrants as criminals. Historically, entering the country illegally has been regarded as a civil—not a criminal—offense. A civil offense, like driving over the speed limit or building a fence on your neighbor’s side of the property line.
But now, there are those who would like to see illegal immigration criminalized. As it is, people are being locked up, deported without due process. It feels vaguely Orwellian to see Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents camping out at hypothermia shelters, targeting the inhabitants like animals, or waylaying the unsuspecting on the way to work.
I felt sick to my stomach last week when I had to look my family in the eye and say that sometimes I don’t even recognize my own country anymore. I thought we were better than this.
How do we regain any semblance of moral integrity when we’re willing to dehumanize our neighbors for political advantage? How can anyone brag about a commitment to “family values,” while destroying the families of those who are often the most vulnerable?
All I could tell my family was that I loved them. I just wish I could tell them that a significant portion of the rest of America loves those families too. That strikes me as the real crime of our immigration policy.
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Photo credit: Flickr/Jonathan McIntosh