Immigrants Reach Beyond a Legal Barrier for a Reunion
These photos are of Dreamers, children of immigrants without documents for this country, who were brought to the United States and never knew they were “illegal,” reuniting with their deported parents through a border wall in Nogales, Arizona.
If you have any reaction to these photos other than empathy, I don’t really want to know.
I think people with their closest generations tied to the United States can’t even realize how scary deportation is. I am the first member of my family to be raised in the United States. My blood related parents, and my step parents escaped from communist Romania in their 20s. And now, 20-25 years later, the threat of deportation is settling in. We have to battle with the government to keep my stepdad in the United States after he spent 20 years creating a life for himself, he’s financially stable, has never been arrested, and he’s a good man in America with a visa. And now, the government is looking for him and trying to send him back to Romania. Why? Because a government official conducted an interview and decided he couldn’t be an American citizen.
So for all of you American citizens with parents that are American citizens, maybe even grandparents or more that are all American citizens. Imagine your mother got a letter in the mail one day, the letter denied her ever potentially becoming a citizen of the U.S., and sent her home to another country. After she worked so hard to create a life for you, she can’t watch you succeed because the government does not believe she could be an American citizen.
