Imagine that ISIS is kidnapping fathers and mothers and sending them to an unknown location, telling their American children to pretty much "deal with it." Picture the bombastic tweets that would come from the nation's highest social medium.
There are no tweets, but the fathers and mothers of American children are being scooped up and deported by the government headed by the bombastic tweeter. Everybody knows about it, but nobody talks about it like they talk about kneeling football players. At the moment I am thinking about it a lot because I have names to go with it.
Melissa Ordonez is 14 years old and a citizen by virtue of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that the Tweeter-in-Chief's voters say they revere. Why Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took her father is covered after the break.
Aldo Ordonez came to the U.S. 15 years ago on a tourist visa and stayed. That's how many "illegal" people get here. No wall would stop them. So Mr. Ordonez was here, and he got a driver's license, paid his taxes and became an active parishioner at St. Joseph's in Miami. He even eventually got a Social Security card -- legally -- and was paying into the system.
When he went to have his driver's license renewed after 9-11, he was reported to ICE. ICE had more important fish to try to catch, and Mr. Ordonez was way more asset than liability to the country. So they gave him temporary postponements of action. But then we got for a President someone who promised to dispose of assets like him.
So ICE nabbed Mr. Ordonez and started deportation proceedings. His parish, St. Joseph, rallied round and hired a lawyer. That is why I know these details, which were reported in The Florida Catholic. ICE saved us from Mr. Ordonez, who the United States, in all its power and majesty, sent back to Peru. His wife, who was also "illegal," decided she would be safer with him than here. Melissa went along. She is only 14. You might say she is a U.S. citizen who lost her rights due to facts on the ground.
The lawyer St. Joseph hired couldn't save Aldo from the pathetic excuse for justice that is our immigration system. But he did help Melissa get her U.S. passport. To which, remember, she is as entitled as you are. It would be nice to think that Melissa is an anomaly. But these days her name is Legion.
Firstly, I experience the horror of this story. Secondly, I realize I'm paying for it. I'd rather subsidize Obamacare, thank you very much.
ReplyDeleteYeah, ditto. There was something on the broadcast news about Trump voters who were horrified when their beloved local restaurateur, "Roberto," was suddenly deported away from his family. "We just wanted the drug dealers deported," they cried, "not our Roberto!"
DeleteGuess what, morons? Most illegals are like Roberto.(Or my Irish ancestors who sneaked in from Canada and started farming in rural Michigan, where they lied when the census officials came a-knockin').
Here's the story. But google "restaurant owner deported" and there are many more cases like this.
https://www.southbendtribune.com/news/local/granger-restaurant-owner-roberto-beristain-deported/article_77635bc8-1a58-11e7-a694-1741825be474.html
It goes on and on. It's sad when this stuff has gotten to be the "new normal". Now our Illustrious Leader has targeted Haitians who sought refuge here in the aftermath of hurricanes and earthquakes. It's hard to see how we can have any influence, or claim any moral high ground against such situations as the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people, when we are perpetrators through ICE policies. I miss the days when I used to be proud of my country :(
ReplyDeleteThere was an article in the Atlantic about Trump voters being at their core racists ... The Nationalist's Delusion ... Lawrence O'Donnell interviewed him here. Trump assured those voters that if he won, people of color would be put in their place, and those voters are happy with what ICE is doing.
ReplyDeleteI pray Mueller finds something to put Trump away for good.
I have a suggestion for a new liturgical practice.
ReplyDeleteIn some places it is customary after communion to have an exhortation. For example recently at Saint Noel's they had the women from Latin America with whom they are partnered give one.
So why not start telling the stories like this after communion as a sign of our solidarity.
Something like the old monastic practice "for our absent brothers"
Whose is the bishop that might endorse this and get it started?
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