Thank goodness for my friend, whose name I won’t reveal, as she is the one doing my grocery shopping and delivering the bags to the house which I share with one other family.
My regular visit to WalMart? No way – large numbers of people in one place are too attractive to poorly trained guys with guns eager to earn their $50,000 paycheck by showing how tough they can be apprehending defenseless people.
It makes no difference that I miss going to my favorite restaurant; it closes completely when warned of a sweep being conducted in the area or when there are no customers, even for take-out.
I tell my family they can wear their dirty clothes another day, or more; laundromats draw too much attention from the guys in masks, often without the body cameras they are required to wear.
Our church becomes a Bible, not a pew. And maybe I turn to some WhatsApp exchanges with people who are praying the current reign of complete unease/terror/overreach by the government will subside as more people object to the way immigration policy is being implemented. (Some would substitute “executed” for implemented given the number of deaths associated with ICE.)
I do have a court date; my lawyer advised me to stay put and let her plead my case. There are too many instances when a person showed up for a court date and was grabbed on the way out.
With assistance from an organization which helps immigrants, I have filled out notarized guardianship papers in case I am taken and my adult son, legally here, has to take charge of his siblings. His father left the family a long time ago, claiming it would make my case less difficult for me to pursue. Who knows in this environment.
I’m obviously not a lawyer, but with help from a member of the community who is chagrined/appalled by the tactics of the administration, I filled out another form, a power of attorney. This was done in the event that my son gets “accidentally” swept up in the administration’s lust for a big body count irrespective of a person’s existing legal status.
A while back, I sent some money I had saved (after paying my taxes I assure you) to a member of my extended family back in the country I left behind — I do not say “my home country.”
“The United States is now my home country” is something I have said for many years, even as people I know still use the latter part of that phrase to refer to where they are from. I understand and appreciate the emotion, but changing my life is why I am here, why I want to be here, why I have kept a clean record since taking the “scenic route” to get here a great many years ago. I would welcome the opportunity to pay a fine for my civil violation.
Now, I have to admit, this identification of “home country” is in conflict and I am being forced to re-think what it means the longer I am afraid to open my front door. I wonder, not only when, but if, my life can revert to what I thought was normal before I heard that the big black cars were in town.
Every day I ask myself, “when can I leave my house?”