The West is burning. Europe and China are flooding. The global temperature is heating up to dangerous levels in ways that defy our will to fix them.
Worldwide, 4 million have died of COVID-19, which, despite effective vaccines, appears to be resurging. In the meantime, the world’s oldest democracy — ours — is having an identity crisis.
In the middle of this turmoil, how do we muster enough compassion to resolve the plight of 800,000 “Dreamers” who were dealt a tough blow on July 16 by a federal judge in Texas?
The Dreamers’ dreams were interrupted when Judge Andrew Hanen of the United States District Court in Houston ruled that President Barack Obama exceeded his authority when he created DACA — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — in 2012.
The judge’s ruling seems to depend largely on a technicality, a violation of the Administration Procedure Act that occurred when the process that created DACA didn’t include an opportunity for public comment. Therefore, the judge says, “DACA never gained status as a legally binding policy.”
Even though Hanen says that the government should not take action against current DACA recipients, it’s not hard to imagine the anxiety that his ruling must have triggered in the hearts of 800,000 “illegal” residents who depend on DACA.
But 800,000 is an abstraction; Angela is a human being.
In 2008, I was teaching college freshman composition. Angela said hardly a word during the first 10 weeks of class. But one day the discussion turned to illegal immigration. Someone asked her why she was so interested in the subject. She blurted out, “Well, I’m illegal.”
When Angela was 13, her parents presented themselves and their children at the border crossing into Brownsville, Texas, and asked for permission to stay in the U.S. for two weeks. She said that the border agents were rude, but they gave her family permission to stay for six months.
They went right to work. Angela’s father mowed lawns and picked up day labor. Her mother cleaned rooms and cooked at a motel in the Rio Grande Valley. All five of them stayed in one room. They never went back.
When Angela enrolled in middle school, she didn’t speak English. Her friends told her that if an Anglo spoke to her, she should shrug her shoulders, say “Whatever” and walk away. It worked.
But she learned English quickly and helped her parents learn as well. In high school she played soccer and danced in the ballet folklorico. The family worked hard and settled into a routine that may have occasionally let them forget that they were illegal.
It wasn’t easy. When Angela’s grandfather had heart surgery in Mexico, her mother had to walk through the desert around a checkpoint to visit him. She emerged after three days, covered with dirt and ticks.
Angela did well in college. She also worked full time as a hotel receptionist. Management wanted to promote her, but she declined, worried that more responsibility would lead to closer scrutiny of her background.
Angela isn’t her real name, of course. I’ve written about her before, in 2008 and again in 2014, but I lost touch with her long ago.
