Stand Together for Immigrant Families

By Ellen Bravo

My mother’s mother arrived at Ellis Island in the early 1900s as an unaccompanied minor, a teenager alone who spoke no English and had no money. She was labeled an “LPC”—a “likely public charge”—slated for deportation. Fortunately, she was able to get in touch with an older brother who’d arrived earlier and lived in Dixon, Illinois. Once he pledged to be responsible for her, the authorities allowed her to board a train to join him.

I’ve thought many times about my grandmother’s journey, the perils for a girl traveling on her own and the even greater danger going on at home in eastern Europe—the vicious attacks and everyday degradation against Jews. Mostly I’ve thought about her sorrow, the pain of having to leave loved ones and friends she would never see again, knowing they had scraped together what they could to enable her to leave.

Today the U.S. shoves unaccompanied minors into detention camps, even though many have loved ones waiting to welcome them. Even worse, this administration tears away children, including infants, from loving parents who have accompanied them on perilous journeys fleeing situations they can no longer bear. We watch in horror and demand they close the camps. In response, the administration unleashes a broadside of deportation raids.

What’s driving this? A heavily financed and well-organized effort to shift our gaze: to turn refugees into “invaders” and “looters,” “others” who are stealing our jobs and soaking up our services—the same kind of hateful narrative my grandma escaped. The hope is that enough people in the U.S., mainly whites but people of color as well, will be so caught up in blaming immigrants, they won’t notice a critical connection: The same people who made billions from outsourcing jobs and keeping wages stagnant are also behind the corporate-driven foreign policy decisions that have destabilized nations in Latin America and elsewhere, causing people to flee.

That’s not all: The wealthy backers of this president hope that dividing people on the basis of race will keep people from banding together to forge common solutions that offer well-being and economic security for all of us.

We in the paid leave movement see those connections. That’s why we are taking action to stop the attacks on immigrants and refugees. We want everyone to be able to be there for family in the best and worst of times—to cuddle an infant or hold the hand of a dying parent. We know every family belongs together; we fight for every family to count. And we won’t let those same powerful people who have blocked paid time to care terrorize immigrant families in our name.

To find out how you can get involved, contact Families Belong Together or an immigrant rights coalition in your area.