Suburban Dad Pop

Is there a border you wouldn’t cross to help your child obtain a lifesaving surgery?
What law wouldn’t you break to keep your daughter from being trafficked?
What bureaucratic red tape wouldn’t you bypass to ensure your parents can obtain medicine?
What protocol wouldn’t you avoid to keep your son from being forced into a gang?
What corner wouldn’t you cut to get your family out of a refugee camp?

If you look deep inside yourself and truly put yourself in someone else’s shoes, I doubt you would follow every rule—especially if your objective were time-sensitive. I imagine you would do whatever was necessary to protect the people you love.

In my nearly 25 years of working in public schools, I have encountered every one of the scenarios listed above.
Every. Single. One.

None of them are hypothetical. All of them are real, and all of them have happened to students I know.

I have worked with students with neurological disorders, heart conditions, and other serious medical issues who, against all odds, made it to this country to receive lifesaving care. If you are a parent, are you really going to patiently wade through endless bureaucratic red tape and wait for your medically fragile child to lawfully enter the country when their heart is a literal ticking time bomb? Or are you going to risk everything to save their life?

Are you going to fill out the proper paperwork and wait weeks, months, or even years to start a safer life while gang members threaten to kidnap your children?

Are you really not going to seek higher-paying work—immediately—to help a parent or family member cover prescription drug costs or pay for surgery?

If your answer is that you would wait, even if it meant your family member might die, be abducted, or be exploited and raped, then you are either lying or incapable of empathy.

Are you truly going to blame undocumented immigrants and refugees for fleeing neighborhoods, states, and countries where so much is on the line? Are you so upset with them that you will boycott their services when they become house cleaners, nannies, cooks, and landscapers? These individuals—who are simply looking for a better life—help keep America’s economy running and, regardless of what Fox News tells you, do not magically transform into drug dealers from Breaking Bad.

Our country is in desperate need of real, serious immigration reform—reform that includes amnesty provisions. Until this administration develops a moral conscience, the majority of those detained will continue to be the very people our communities rely on to function. Simultaneously, our country also needs a proactive vetting system that keeps violent criminals out.

Both of these things can be true at the same time.

Despite this administration’s vow to target the “worst of the worst,” recent data contradicts that claim. An estimated 20% of those detained have nonviolent misdemeanor convictions—ranging from traffic violations to loitering—and only about 5% have violent criminal convictions. Odds are your local suburban neighborhood has similar statistics.

Which means ICE agents are not going after the “worst of the worst”—unless you consider mothers with a child in the NICU an imminent threat. Or perhaps veterans with Purple Hearts are the real villains? Should we also be horrified by mothers being ripped away from their children at school, or fathers being taken from their families after attending immigration hearings, having their cases dismissed, and doing everything legally?

Don’t get me wrong—there are obviously bad actors out there. When federal officers do their jobs the right way, with due diligence that never excludes due process, that is a good thing. However, with morally, functionally, and intellectually compromised leaders at the helm of the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, and the FBI, constitutional rights—including the right to due process—have been violated. Repeatedly.

My belief is that this administration has no intention of doing the right thing—and even if it did, it lacks the competence to do so.

Deep in our collective soul, we are failing the most vulnerable members of our society. We are allowing social media, cable news, and the vitriol they generate to cloud our judgment and cause us to cut off our noses to spite our faces. The “worst of the worst” are not the majority being detained, and the unsung heroes—the people who make this country run—are paying the price.

If you support this brand of unconstitutional cruelty, I doubt my meager words will change your mind. But I hope that during this holiday season, you will spend time in self-reflection, asking yourself who the real bad guys are. The real bad guys are not undocumented kindergartners with shunts, high school students who spent their formative years in immigration camps, or single adults sending money home so their families can buy groceries and medicine or pay the mortgage.

The bad guys are the federal agents who racially profile and detain single mothers.
The bad guys are the government officials who applaud fascist ideals and grant these agents unchecked power.
The bad guys are the members of the judicial branch who allow deportations without due process.
The bad guys are those who claim to love the Constitution and the rule of law, yet follow neither.

And most especially, the bad guys are those who use zip ties to shackle half-naked children in the middle of the night.

There are a lot of bad guys out there—and this administration is full of them.

Peace be with you this holiday season.