“There’s warfare,” Muhammed from Yemen wrote to me. “All the things is chaotic. Colleges are closed. Individuals haven’t any meals to eat. Everyone seems to be scared. It’s very harmful. Little youngsters have weapons and different weapons.”
“The politics in Bangladesh is corrupt,” wrote Tamjid. “Colleges are at all times closed due to strikes. Many college students are afraid to go to highschool.”
“We got here right here as a result of my father was threatened and my household was afraid they might harm us,” Miguel of Colombia wrote.
Such have been the 81 playing cards — hand-made, hand-written and colorfully illustrated in crayon — carrying private messages to me from immigrant youngsters now residing within the U.S.
Six years in the past, I gave a chat in entrance of some 150 college students, lecturers and oldsters on the Academy for New Individuals, a public center faculty for grades six via eight in New York Metropolis. The college educates lately arrived immigrant youngsters who enroll understanding little or no English however who then graduate talking English fluently. Afterward, one of many college students handed me a big manila envelope containing the 81 playing cards.
The opposite day, provoked by the new deportation policy rolling out so thunderously nationwide, I appeared on the playing cards as soon as extra.
These adolescents had migrated to the U.S. from dozens of nations: Albania, Bangladesh, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Paraguay, Pakistan, Peru, Spain, Tibet, Venezuela and Vietnam. A number of the households, the youngsters wrote to me, had fled poverty, violent crime, civil warfare and different hardships. The playing cards supplied a telling snapshot, a multi-cultural cross-section of immigrant youth in America craving to breathe free.
The scholars advised me the place they hoped to go in life right here within the U.S. Nearly all mentioned they supposed to pursue academic and financial alternatives unavailable again residence. They declared ambitions to change into physicians, attorneys, entrepreneurs, pc scientists, dentists, mechanical engineers and, sure, skilled soccer gamers.
“My mom, father and me are so glad to be right here in the USA,” one pupil wrote. “Quickly we will likely be residents.” One other advised me, “I come to New York to be somebody in my life.” One more mentioned on the again of her card, “Observe your goals.”
How have these 81 youngsters, now roughly ages 18 to 24, fared since composing these notes to me? Did they graduate from highschool? Are they attending school? Are they nonetheless dreaming the American dream?
I attempted to search out out. I emailed the instructor who initially invited me. No response. I additionally reached out to the college’s principal looking for updates on the youngsters. No reply. I adopted up a number of occasions, at all times to no avail.
I think they’re scared — afraid of the questions I would ask and scared to talk for the file, however scared much less for themselves than for these youngsters. I don’t know whether or not the dad and mom of those 81 youngsters got here right here legally or illegally, are documented or undocumented, or have legal information. Regardless of the case, it could be that they’re all — college students, dad and mom, lecturers and principals alike — now working scared.
I’m neither a lawyer nor an skilled on immigration coverage, however what I’m given to grasp may occur to these 81 youngsters is that this: Even youngsters who got here right here legally may very well be deported in sure circumstances, comparable to a visa expiring. The Deferred Motion for Childhood Arrivals program, designed to guard undocumented people dropped at the U.S. as youngsters, may very well be terminated. If youngsters have dad and mom who’re to be deported, the youngsters might have to decide on between going again residence with them, or being separated from household for who is aware of how lengthy.
Widespread concern persists about how humanely the brand new deportation coverage is being enacted and enforced. The present marketing campaign has run into appreciable public opposition, with the courts intervening and voicing authorized challenges that decision for some flexibility. Various immigrant households with youngsters who can afford to take action have consulted immigration attorneys to navigate the rising menace.
Make no mistake: the legislation is the legislation, and the legislation must be upheld. However the legislation is topic to interpretation, discretion and leeway. And at its coronary heart the legislation is concerning the pursuit of justice, and will thereby acknowledge that some circumstances are particular if not singular.
Our nation is endowed with an immigrant heritage that’s first in school all over the world. The spirit of equity calls for that we exhibit mercy and compassion, particularly towards youngsters who’re responsible of nothing besides being youngsters.
The covers of the playing cards I obtained from these 81 youngsters steadily featured a sure phrase of greeting towards me. It’s the very phrase they nonetheless deserve to listen to from all of us. That phrase is “welcome.”
Bob Brody, a marketing consultant and essayist, is a former New Yorker and writer of the memoir “Playing Catch with Strangers: A Family Guy (Reluctantly) Comes of Age.”