persi coes
“Don’t think about it too much,” people would say whenever I brought up the latest headline about our current president’s decision-making. “You need to just tune it out for now—don’t let yourself become too caught up in the situation.”
I turned 18 on September 21st, 2024. Along with the usual birthday wishes came a new kind of congratulation–people eagerly reminding me that I could now vote in the upcoming presidential election. “Are you excited?” they would ask, acting as if I had just gained some new superpower. I’d flash a smile and nod – Yes! I am incredibly excited! – but inside, my stomach would curl up. I have always been one of those people who feel a disturbing awareness of aging on their birthday. While others celebrate, I preoccupy myself with the thoughts of having to pay taxes (nightmare), live on my own (double nightmare), and educate myself on the status of our country and where I stand in society (hellscape). Although I knew that casting my vote would be meaningful, I couldn’t rid myself of the deeper anxiety – the knowledge that my singular ballot would do little to outweigh the grand forces at play.
My anxiety worsened in the days following Trump’s inauguration. My sleeping suffered, and I found myself constantly tossing and turning, replaying the worst-case scenarios of what he could do. What would he do? Having been partly raised by a family that immigrated from Peru – Sally and Josh along with their three children, Leah, Mia, and Max – I have spent years exposed to and engrossed in immigration policy. Being an issue that is not only theoretical to me but personal – shaping both my family’s history and my future career ambitions. So, you can imagine my horror when I saw the headlines that Trump would be cracking down on immigration control in the United States.
Some backstory: In 2012, Sally and Josh’s youngest, Max, stood in front of Philadelphia’s Immigration Enforcement office after a protest for Miguel Garcia – an undocumented male who was being held in York Detention Center in PA. Max was protesting in support of Garcia, while also in support of the DREAM ACT – Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors – which provides a path to citizenship for young people who serve in the military or finish college. Twelve years later, his work in activism came back for a little visit.
Last week, as I sat in the van driving to one of the waterways destinations, I received a text from Sally saying that Max had a deportation order and that Sally was worried. I swear I turned visibly green at that moment. His deportation order was a consequence of his activism for the Dreamers; however, he has had multiple visas over the years, was currently secured under a work visa, and, more recently, he had gotten married, making him eligible for citizenship. However, none of that mattered at this moment. Sally told me that their lawyer had sent a letter requesting the deportation order to be removed but had yet to receive a response. Max had been safe under Trump’s previous administration–his case hadn’t been a priority. But now, with Trump ramping up his heinous antics and anti-immigrant rhetoric, uncertainty fills our country.
Now, I could spend hours raving against Trump’s blatant stupidity, cruelty, incompetence, and acts of dictatorship, BUT I will keep my rant focused on what I find to be one of the more pressing and morally reprehensible acts of his presidency: increasing ICE harassment and arrests of US citizens as well as ordering that ICE-Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) prioritize civil immigration enforcement over criminal trafficking investigations (as he did before).
This act should not be considered just “bad policy,” instead it is an example of moral failing of the highest order. Trump’s approach to immigration control has never been about sustaining law and order; it has always been about creating fear and division. Under Trump’s order, ICE has been emboldened to act as an unchecked force, terrorizing communities and conducting raids, ripping families apart. Children are being separated from their families, with no future plan of reunification. His administration deliberately redirects resources away from combatting human trafficking, instead prioritizing the harassment and deportation of everyday undocumented individuals. His new policies create fear amongst society, forcing people to live in terror as they go to work, send their children to school or even just answer their front door.
To support this figure is to support his policies, endorsing human cruelty. Dismissing these people as just another news cycle, something to tune out, is just allowing injustice to fester further into our lives! Even though my vote is currently an inefficient tool that resembles a bent saw, it is nonetheless a tool I can use. People like Max, Sally, Josh, or anyone you know who has immigrated here are living in fear, and I refuse to squander it and look the other way. The outcome of this election isn’t just merely political; it’s personal.