He’ll never get to know his baby and now the young mother has to provide for her son alone. How is this #prolife and #profamily @realDonaldTrump?
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The husband of one of my housekeepers (who has a new baby) was deported. He was 33 and had been in America since he was 5. He knew no one in Mexico. His whole family is here. This week he hung himself in Tijuana.
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I’m going to be off twitter for a few hours. I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate your kind words. I do. But it feels ghoulish “liking” your replies. Eventually Trump’s cruelty will touch all of us, at least through the people we care about.
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Thank you for your kind words. I can’t reply to everyone, so I’ll try to give more details. I don’t know many. When they’re here, they’re working, so we mostly chat when they arrive and before they leave.
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I hired them through a service that background checks employees and handles taxes, withholding, etc. so I don’t know if they’re citizens (through birth or naturalization) or residents, but they are not undocumented workers.
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Their family included an undocumented member. I don’t know if there are other sons and daughters-in-law with the same status. If so, I imagine they wouldn’t want to draw attention to themselves and their loved ones.
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Several people have asked about a Go Fund Me page. I would have to ask them if they would want that, but it’s a difficult subject to broach since they’re not “friends” and they’re not strangers - just proud, hard-working people who I had the good fortune to hire.
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I worry any positive attention will be offset by unforeseen consequences like the arrest and deportation of their friends and other family. Many people don’t seem to understand that families and communities are often a blend of varying immigration statuses.
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Donna might not need to worry about being deported, but if she protests too loudly, she risks ICE showing up at their church or next family picnic. The anxiety would cripple me. This is how our government terrorizes law-abiding people into silence.
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The lives of their loved ones are at stake if they try to stand up to these irrational immigration policies. Yet GOP members of Congress won’t even risk their jobs to rein Trump in. Maybe they simply agree America should be a white nation. Cruelty or cowardice? I don’t know.
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One detail I know: Saturday they had a party for the baby with tons of family and friends. They were Skyping the dad so he could be part of the festivities. They think seeing everyone together, knowing he couldn’t come back without breaking the law, made him feel hopeless.
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One more thing - I’m sad because people I care about are going through an incredibly painful experience. I don’t think I could tweet about my husband’s/son-in-law’s/friend’s deportation and suicide.
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I rage about Trump daily, but this single, pointless death makes me feel raw and hopeless. I’m not sure how I can tell them hundreds of people on Twitter are sending them love, but I’ll try.
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I hope you’ll continue to share their story. Maybe his death will inspire people to ACT. I hope we don’t wait until everyone knows someone hurt by our government’s inhumane immigration policies. By then, I think it will be too late to stop the coup.
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End of conversation
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