As I was scrolling through Instagram one evening, I came across a screenshot of an article talking about a one-year-old boy who had appear before an immigration judge to discuss his deportation processes, despite being separated from his father at the time.
The judge was reportedly embarrassed to have to ask the baby about whether he understood the proceedings. Despite coming across many posts about Trump’s administration, this one caught my eye for all the tragic reasons. It seems like nowadays the U.S. is becoming a popular topic of discussion for all the wrong reasons.
Even though we believe, as humans, that the political climate of the U.S. can’t become anymore worse, it somehow finds itself to be.
One common characteristic that’s present within all humans is that we all have the small but hopeful belief that people aren’t as bad as they seem. Yet, there’s always a point that we reach where we realize that this person isn’t planning on changing for the better anytime soon.
Donald Trump has proven to his country and the world that he’s making America great for fellow hard-headed racists like him. This statement became solid fact when pictures of Melania Trump wearing a jacket that said “I really don’t care. Do U?” surfaced online while visiting the U.S.-Mexico border. When I saw the picture, I had to laugh. She was an immigrant herself, how could she dismiss the very troubles that she went through herself? Then it hit me. It didn’t matter that they were immigrants, it was the fact that they were immigrants of colour.
While this monstrosity was making its way across all types of media, I was brought back to my own immigration story. Despite being born in Canada, my parents were first-generation immigrants from Sri Lanka. They were escaping from the Sri Lankan Civil War due to the majority of the fighting taking place in their villages and being targeted kills as a result of being the minority.
At the time, my father just got his master’s degree in math and physics. He wanted to be a high school teacher. My mother was offered a job to work as an editor for a newspaper. Both of them had prospective futures that they ended up dropping for their safety. Despite legal processes being available, the danger of death was so great that their journey to the next segment of their life had to be done as asylum-seeking refugees. They didn’t have any intention to leave Sri Lanka to steal the jobs of fellow Canadians or do illegal activity. They left because they wanted to stay alive.
Now you might be wondering why I decided to give you a little autobiography of my family. The reason is because we need to remove the notion that illegal immigration is something that people do intentionally. In the U.S., the majority of illegal immigrants are from Mexico and bordering Latin American countries. Many citizens living there are experiencing hardships such as political and economic oppression and uncontrollable violence rates.
Even though we believe, as humans, that the political climate of the U.S. can’t become anymore worse, it somehow finds itself to be.
As a result of experiencing such uncertainty in their lives, they choose to drop everything and find something a bit better for the sake of a certain future. The people entering the U.S. aren’t all your stereotypical gangsters or rapists or drug dealers or job-stealers. They are hardworking people who in fact help the economy by doing the jobs that no one wants and just want to stay afloat.
On top of that, kids shouldn’t have to be tricked into being separated from their parents just to be locked up in cages, sent to foster care or, in some dire cases, abused because they wanted a better future. The fact that Trump’s government believed that ripping away an innocent child from a situation that isn’t under their control in order to control illegal entry rings multiple loud alarms as to if anyone in the White House has morals.
Although this problem seems like something out of our control, as this practice is still taking place, by supporting rallies and spreading knowledge about the issue, the mindset of the general public can be swayed for the better. It doesn’t take a large platform or a lot of followers in order to make a difference.
Sometimes, the recognition of the problem is enough to let the kids trapped in this know that there’s a glimmer of a future without having to constantly run.
By Keerthikah Jegatheesan