It's been a long time since I've written. Too long, not only because so much is going on but also because writing is an outlet and way to try and deal with so many painful issues that arise when working with the immigrant community. I'm finding it hard to sit with the stories my life intersects with. There is so much pain out there and I don't know how immigrants can deal with everything that comes their way without being crushed by the immensity of it all. It's hard for me and it's not even my life.

Today, I helped a man who is trying to get custody of his 15 year old son who was detained while crossing the border in Arizona. I don't know the circumstances of his detention nor whether he was snagged by Joe Arpaio or some other crazy Minuteman militia-type but I do know that he ended up in temporary custody of an organization which takes responsibility for juveniles who have been detained by ICE.

My client, let's call him Marcelo, got my number from someone who knows me at Head Start. How he got to them, I don't know. He is new to Springfield and I can imagine him wandering around the city looking for help, unable to speak English. Head Start had been helping him through the process of trying to get custody of his son, his oldest. Marcelo has five children, and he entered the US by crossing the border in 2008. He initially went to Los Angeles then to Florida and recently came here. He couldn't find more than a few days work in Florida so with his brothers-in-law he came up here. But, he hasn't had much more luck here and after asking me if I wanted to buy a new electric typewriter that he had, I realized that he was low on cash and probably needed food. I took him to the church where we store our food and gave him a lot of rice, beans, tomatoes and maseca hoping to tide him over for a month or so in case work doesn't pick up.

After Marcelo called me I went to his house to talk to him. He had a pile of papers from the agency in Arizona who has temporary custody of his son. One of the papers was a Affidavit of Support from USCIS which required him to attest to his legal status and another was a set of blank fingerprint forms. He was asked for his address and where he worked and all sorts of other personal information. I told him that I didn't think it was a good idea to fill out these papers or turn in his fingerprints because he would basically be outing himself to ICE and they might just come on over to snatch him. But, I told him I would call the social worker in Arizona to see what this was all about.

I talked to (let's call her) Luisa and she said not to worry because all this paperwork would stay with them and they would not share it with USCIS. They just need to comply with state rules about releasing a minor into custody of a parent or guardian and we didn't need to attest to anything that isn't true. We could just leave portions of the paperwork blank.

OK. We did that. We filled out what we could. Then I took him down to the police station to be fingerprinted. I could tell that Marcelo was extremely nervous about this and I assured him that I had come to the station many times with immigrants and that nothing had ever happened. After paying the cost of the fingerprints we waited until the fingerprinting guy called us in. I asked Marcelo what part of Guatemala he was from. He said a town south of the capital, which is quite far from where most of the Guatemalans in Springfield are from. This peaked my curiosity so I asked him whether his family had been at all affected by the civil war. He said that his mother and four sisters were all killed in the war when he was around nine years old. I didn't ask the circumstances but I knew that this meant that they probably had all been raped before being killed and that their killing was probably horrific and cruel. He said that many other family members had been killed, too, and that in his little town over 50 people were killed during one day. He told me that from that time whenever he sees someone in an army or police uniform he becomes agitated and afraid.

This information came on the heels of a meeting I had with another client on Monday who also was from Guatemala and told me that his two grandfathers and his father had been killed during the war there. This man had recently been assaulted here in Springfield and I was taking him to the police station to follow up on his case.

Marcelo told me that his family has a little land to grow food but because it is raining so much the seeds they plant are often just washed away and they reap nothing from their work.

Juan told me that he always blamed the war for his not being able to finish school because after his father was killed he had to quit school to support his family.

Both of these men were so polite, gracious, grateful and kind to me. Which really astounds and shames me. When I think of what they've been through during their entire lives; living in poverty, scrambling to earn a living to feed their families, making the long, long journey here in hopes of finding some job, any job, to feed their children and their parents, I can only feel shame for what my country's policies have meant to people like them. How the blindness of our population, so content with a middle class lifestyle that has allowed them to furnish their homes with luxuries, send their children to school and believe that nothing can touch their upward progress has led them to ignore how our leaders' support of the exploitation of others around the world has directly contributed to the misery and suffering of these two men and so many more. We've ignored the consequences of our irresponsible vote all the way back to the coup in Guatemala in 1954 when democracy had a chance to possibly address the horrible poverty of the people there to today when our leaders ignore climate change in favor of the bottom line. (And, of course, our government has been screwing over Central America for centuries now in the name of big business and cheap food for our own country.)

And, when I think about how on top of these cruel policies meant to fatten us up we now tolerate immigration policies which further punish the victims of these policies and treat these suffering people as animals who should labor in the fields silently regardless of whether their racist bosses pay them or not, I wish I believed in heaven and hell so that I could be sure that those whose greed let's them live comfortably and walk around in beautifully tailored suits thinking they deserve respect and deference will one day get the justice they deserve for their callous cruelty and for profiting from the labor of these two kind men and so many more.

Marcelo and I got all his paperwork filled out. I faxed and mailed it all to Luisa who told me that Marcelo's son will soon be joining his father. Of course, the son has no defense to his deportation and will have to keep his court appointments. She will have the court change the venue to Massachusetts and Marcelo will get a letter from them about his son's next court date. I told him that if his son does not present himself to the court an order of deportation will issue and they will come looking for him at the address where he now lives. So, yes, Marcelo will get his son back and his son will have some time to look for work and try to help keep his family eating in Guatemala. But, if he defies ICE they will come looking for him and if they move away ICE will take the others who live with Marcelo (if they don't move, too). The house is now on ICE's radar.

But, family comes first.

So, when Marcelo thanked me for my kindness I only felt the bitterness of my own complicity in his suffering. I told him that it was the least I could do in light of the fact that my own country was responsible for so much of his own difficulties. I was happy I could help him but I really felt like going out and hurting someone to shake off the pain settling in my own heart. And, that's why he's a better person than I.