My parents and I were lucky.
We never had to slog through deserts and oceans only to be turned away at the border. I was never separated from dad and mom and stashed away in a chicken wire fenced pen for months on end without basic necessities.
After all, this was the world before 9/11, before even Desert Storm, before what little sympathy there was for Middle Easterns turned to suspicious hatred and vitriol. All we had to do was file the necessary visa paperwork and show that we have the support of mom’s family, who at that point had already been living in the US for more than a decade. Mom came over in 1990, followed by me in April 1992, with dad bringing up the rear in June of the same year.
There we were, the whole family, back together again, all on tourist visas. Dad and mom scraped together whatever money they could and hired lawyers and kickstarted our green card applications. As the only English fluent of the bunch, it all fell to me to fill out applications, translate between lawyers and parents, irrelevant and redundant as their interruptions may have been (looking right at you, mother!), and navigate between the many floors of the main INS building in Arlington, Va during numerous fingerprinting and ID photography. All the while I also had to deal with an argumentative and critical dad and a whiny, needy mom. Suddenly, I was the parents and they were the children.
Meanwhile, dad and mom slowly sold everything of value we had to pay the lawyers and keep our cases going forward. The last of those possessions to go were their gold wedding bands. We were all heartbroken to see those go, even me. I still don’t know why.
At last, after many months of skipping meals, sleeping in the car, begging Iranian business owners for under the table work, and quite a few broken apartment leases, we all received our social security cards and work permits.
We could finally restart our lives in the land of opportunity. We could begin our pursuit of the American dream.
Sigh.
This, dear friends, was how we migrated to the US the legally, by going through proper channels. And I didn’t even mention my $5500 hospital bill when I collapsed my first night here, mom’s constant trips to the emergency room for God knows what, and all other life’s niggles and unknown variables. And we did it at a time when the world was a relatively kinder, gentler place; countries were more welcoming of strangers seeking a better, safer life, and “alt-right” was what you called your left hand.
I can only imagine what it’s like to try this today, in a world exploding at every corner and coming apart at the seams, where ‘different’ is hated and feared, and everyone confuses nationalism with patriotism. Where “shit happens” is an acceptable response to migrants dying en-route to a better life, and murder and genocide are forgiven in favor of capital gains.
Whatever or whenever the case may be, immigration process isn’t a fun, breezy adventure Undertaken when people are out of vacation ideas. At its legal best, it is a lengthy, very expensive, and mind boggling process. At its illegal worst, it is not only lengthy and very expensive, but also extremely dangerous and physically difficult. Every immigrant has a reason for abandoning their life in their native land and undertaking the journey.
So next time you call immigrants “nasty dirty freeloaders… a plight on our way of life”, and suggesting they use their religion and native clothing to illicit sympathy and gain entrance to your country, wherein they will divert your taxes to pay for their healthcare, maybe consider what I’ve said here and reconsider.