IMMIGRATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS

 

As I sit down to write this post, my mind is on my mother, who has been dead these 12 years.  In truth, I often go days without thinking about her.  But today she is in the forefront of my thoughts.  

Allow me to explain.

After moving last week from my home of nearly 33 years, I am currently settling into an apartment.  And although I only moved across town and am delighted to be in a smaller space with much less stuff, the move felt, and feels, like a big deal. 

It’s not that I was sorry to move; I was not. I like my new place; I think it’s going to be a good fit.  Still, I am feeling unsettled and a bit isolated.  I made the move alone, being recently widowed, and I have yet to meet my neighbors. Also, I keep reaching in the wrong drawers to find things, not to mention the things I can’t reach for because they are in boxes that are yet to be unpacked. . . .

It is these unsettled and isolated feelings that have me thinking about my mother.  If it was a big deal for me to move a few miles, what was it like for her to move to a new country?  (I write of her and not my father because it was he who decided they would move from Scotland to Canada a few years after The Second World War. She was a reluctant immigrant at a time when most women had little choice but to do what, and go where, their husbands dictated.)

From earliest childhood, I understood that my mother missed her country of birth, which she always referred to as “back home.” I knew that she missed her family, with whom she kept in touch through air letters.  (Remember, this was before email, texting, and smartphones. Back in the 1950s, only wealthy people made phone calls overseas.)  By the time a visit to Scotland was feasible for my mother, her parents were long dead.

What I wonder now as I unpack in my new space is this: What was she able to bring with her when they crossed the Atlantic by ship?  

Not much, I’m guessing. 

Not only did she begin a new life without her family and friends, but she must have arrived in the new world with very little other than some clothing and maybe a few boxes of household goods.

Oh, and did I mention she was pregnant? Yes, I swam across an ocean in utero. 

Only now does it occur to me how lonely and bewildered my mother must have felt. Pondering this, I wish I could go back in time to ask her more about the experience of leaving her family and everything that was familiar to her.  I wish I could comfort her retrospectively. 

Still, as I follow current events, it occurs to me that, emotional and physical challenges notwithstanding, my parents were fortunate immigrants. They were greeted by my aunt and uncle, who had preceded them in moving to Canada. They spoke the language of their new country, albeit with differences in accent and word choice. And there was no question of them being “illegal,” as Canada was a British commonwealth country. I don’t know if my father had a job lined up before they emigrated,* but, if not, he soon found one in his field--engineering. 

A couple of years later, my father moved the family to New Jersey where he had secured employment.  This allowed the whole family to obtain green cards.  All in all, a seamless immigration. 

Growing up white, with a green card and, later, citizenship papers, I never felt less than American, never felt at risk of deportation.  Indeed, the possibility never crossed my mind.  

Contrast my experience and that of my parents with that of those who have just learned that their Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is in jeopardy, thanks to the opinion handed down by The Supreme Court last week in Mullin v. Doe.  For those not familiar with the TPS program, it was enacted in 1990, and gives the Department of Homeland Security the power to designate the citizens of other countries eligible to remain in the United States if they cannot return safely to their own countries.  

From the summaries I have read, I understand The Supreme Court to have ruled that decisions of the Secretary of Homeland Security with regard to TPS are not subject to judicial review. The Court thus cleared the way for the Trump administration to proceed with its plan to revoke the temporary protected status of over 500,000 Haitians and Syrians who are currently in this country. 

I have not read the opinion myself, so I can’t speak to the soundness of the Court’s reasoning.  Instead, I want to express my fury at the cruelty of the current administration.  It appears that Trump and his allies wish to deport as many brown-skinned people s possible, as quickly as possible, regardless of the havoc and desperation that will ensue. 

Apart from the heartlessness of ripping people from the lives they have created here, and sending them back to countries where they face danger and, often, death, has the President considered the fallout if he is able to carry out his plan for mass deportation? Who will do the jobs left vacant if hundreds of thousands of people are deported?

Even if J. D. Vance succeeds in his crusade to have lots and lot of white people have lots and lots of babies in a great big hurry, are those babies going to grow up wanting to pick crops and take care of people in nursing homes?

In reality, people have always emigrated, moved, shifted from place to place—sometimes individually and sometimes en masse. In recent years, conditions in the global south have led to a great wave of people attempting to enter our country, putting pressure on border states.  I’m not suggesting this does not require a response or that we put no limits on immigration. But we as a nation have a choice:  We can try to control this influx with cruelty or with thoughtful and fair legislation.  I know the kinder path won’t be easy. 

But, can we try?

We might start by restoring USAID and doing whatever else is in our power to make it safe and possible for people to make lives for themselves in their home countries. Maybe a lottery, so that people will not be welcomed based on skin color or wealth. I’m just spit balling here. Better minds than mine can surely come up with other ideas.

Getting back to those in danger of losing their temporary protected status.  Yes, I know the T stands for temporary, but I am not aware of  conditions having improved in Haiti or Syria.  We have offered protection to these people, who I might add are here legally.  Are we really going to snatch it away now without reason or due process?

Are we that pitiless?

And, yes, it seems unlikely that the administration will actually manage to deport all those with temporary protected status.  But imagine being welcomed into our country with a promise of protection, then waking up one morning to the threat of deportation, with no sign that the country from which you have fled is any safer than it was when you left.  Just the threat is cruelty enough.

My mother always missed her homeland, but she eventually settled into her new life. Those forced to flee their countries must also miss the lives they left behind, even as they gratefully put down roots in the place that welcomes them with these lines affixed to The Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, 

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

 

We can do better to make these words a reality.  I know we can.

*As many of you know, I am a word nerd, so I must share something I recently learned:  One emigrates from a country and immigrates to another.  Maybe you already knew this.  If not, you now have another piece of arcane knowledge.