Why is the deporter-in-chief celebrating while these families get torn apart?
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Version 0 of 1. Washington is a town known for its contradictions. Politicians caught having affairs preach family values. A series of presidents who have admitted to drug use in college oversee prosecutions that punish people for doing the same. Reform lobbyists claim to advocate for the inclusion of immigrants, but they rarely – if ever – include us at the table. So when the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) provided political cover for the White House after Barack Obama broke his promise to expand relief from deportation before the end of summer, it seemed to many across the partisan spectrum to be more election-year politics as usual. And when those same members of Congress extended an invitation for the president to be the guest of honor at their gala celebrating Hispanic heritage this Thursday evening, it could have been just one more reason to be cynical about politics – if politics weren’t so dangerous. Despite the Obama administration’s demands for obedience in private, White House domestic policy advisor Cecilia Muñoz recently told NPR that advocates “should be in the administration’s face” right now as a result of the decision to prolong policies the administration itself has described as not humane. But when the Hispanic Caucus had the opportunity to stand up to the president, they instead dutifully fell in line for deportation relief on a timeline set up not just conveniently after the midterms but by sometime around “the holidays”. Supporting the Latino community does not mean celebrating “Hispanic heritage” one night a year at a black-tie event meant for pre-election fundraising. If either the president or Congressional leaders wanted to fully celebrate with Latino communities, they would stand alongside the people who will be eating inside a detention center tonight, who will be recharging the electronic shackles on their ankles as they come home from work, who will be making plans with spouses and loved ones about what to do with the children whom on-going deportations are forcing them to leave behind. Because while politicians counsel patience to our besieged community, the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division is using the election-year delay period to be more aggressive than ever. After Homeland Security’s ICE officers came to his door last week, Francisco Aguirre, a labor leader known for nearly two decades for helping working people in Portland, Oregon, was forced to take refuge in a church basement and now says goodnight to his citizen children not in person but by way of Skype. Gustavo Bonilla-Noriega, who moved to New Orleans to aid in the reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina, is now facing removal from the city he helped rebuild. Or consider Javier Nava, the only one released in a 50-person raid in Georgia, who is now considered a felon because driving without a license multiple times in that southern state adds up to the stigma and pretext for sweeping him away entirely. All three have compelling cases – and extensive proof that they are not a danger to the community. Yet all three have been ordered deported by the Obama administration. They should be the ones honored at the gala, not the one person – Barack Obama – who has the untapped legal authority to stop their suffering. Instead the president is telling us to wait another 40 days for executive action. Those 40 days waiting for the relief he has promised are not just boxes on a calendar to be checked off. Each of the 40 is another sleepless night, another lost parent, another raid in the community, another assault in detention. Forty days and 40 nights is far too long to wait for relief when it’s your family being torn apart. In the past six years, President Obama has become known as the “deporter-in-chief” as a result of the record immigration removals he has administered. Last spring, when he finally announced that he would use his constitutional authority to provide common sense relief, people were ready to see him in a new light – as a reformer, maybe even an ally. We were ready to celebrate, but only when he does the right thing, not before. We’d still much prefer to defend sound policy like expanding deferred action than have to continue to stand up to defend families shattered by unjust enforcement. But until President Obama and Washington begin to understand the human cost of delay, those of us who are reduced to statistics – whose suffering is excused as politically expedient – will have to continue to force the world and the White House to act on the urgency that has been denied. The humanity of those who will be deported on Thursday night, while the Hispanic Caucus and the president celebrate, can simply no longer be ignored. |