UPDATE: You won't be surprised that, upon further review, ICE said yesterday (Tuesday) that Francis Anwana has to go. Generously, and in the spirit that makes America great, ICE will let Mr. Anwana, who is deaf and disabled and understands sign language in English, but none of the other three languages of Nigeria ... make his own arrangements. Do you have to be stupid, too, to be that mean?
I think y'all know I have Google automatically send me a daily roundup of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the news. I also promised I wouldn't be a noodge. So I don't pass on details of what is being done, in our name, to children and families that run afoul of the pudgy guy's ego.
But this outrage is against a deaf and disabled guy -- a 48-year-old who reads at a second-grade level -- deporting him to a country he hasn't seen in 34 years. It doesn't matter what your vulnerability is, the "real Americans" are going to get you and make you suffer.
The original deportation date was 9/11. I'll bet the boys sitting around the ICE office got a good guffaw out of the symbolism of protecting the country from the deaf and disabled on such a memorable date.
Someone has to be really despicable to do this sort of work.
Tom, that is indeed an outrage. It goes along with some similar stories, including efforts to deport a young man with Down's Syndrome, who has lived in the US since infancy. And this article about a pregnant woman from Omaha who was deported and sent back to El Salvador, leaving behind her husband (who is here legally) and their 4 year old daughter, who was born here. Her heinous crime? Shoplifting in 2010, for which she paid a fine at the time. She was arrested coming from her daughter's day care. I think she was targeted because she was pregnant; can't have another anchor baby here!
ReplyDeleteA couple of recent posts here have discussed the difficulty of being a person with a conscience and a brain, and working for the Trump administration. I believe a worse difficulty would be a person with a conscience who is an ICE employee. I actually tried to find an article about such a person, remaining anonymous, but staying with the job, hoping to do some kindness for the people in custody. I can especially imagine a person working with the children in custody, feeling that bailing out would leave them at the mercy of people with no conscience. But I was able to find no such article. I found several about people who couldn't take it anymore and quit ICE. And some Fox articles about how ICE is doing their job, being the hammerers of those who are Here ILLEGAlly, and Breaking the LAW. But Faux News is a digression, this isn't a comment about sins against the first Commandment.
There ARE no people with a conscience and possibly even a grain working in this administration! What makes you think there are?
DeleteWell, one can always hope! But I'm afraid you may be right.
DeleteThere is a section of ICE that actually does run down gang members and drug dealers and arrests them. It seems to be a small office compared to the knuckle draggers who do the famous work, but 40 people from that group did petition a couple of months ago to be separated from the rest of ICE so people wouldn't confuse the ones doing real police work with the knuckle draggers.
ReplyDeleteThe Michigan Immigrant Rights Center has delayed the deportation and a hearing is scheduled for Sept. 21. https://michiganimmigrant.org
ReplyDeleteThis org (and similar ones in your respective states) take donations. Noodge away, Tom.
Just one more case of Trumplethinskintinyhandserialadulterer's storm troopers making AmuriKKKa grate agin!
ReplyDelete