FROM THE EDITOR: A Local Immigrant Defines the Best in America ...
... extremists left and right have failed to learn her lessons -- America has much to give those who come, and requires much of them.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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In the national debate over immigration, one set of voices is too rarely heard – those of people deported.
Adele Uphaus made a small, but significant, dent in that void on Monday when she interviewed Mirna Benitez, who was summoned to an off-hours’ meeting with ICE agents outside Richmond and never returned home.
Instead, Benitez spent 10 days in ICE custody being shuttled from Riverside Regional Jail in Richmond to ICE facilities in Texas and Louisiana. Finally, after 10 days she was deported to her native El Salvador.
Her story is nothing less than shocking in its inhumanity.
She reportedly was laughed at as she was placed in handcuffs and as the agents repeatedly tried, and failed, to get clean fingerprints.
Her “intimate parts” were searched, she claims, for hidden weapons
She said she was stuck on a cargo plane in Texas for five hours, in handcuffs, while an ICE agent and the pilot argued – the pilot was concerned about being told to fly despite concerns about technical issues. He eventually walked away.
She said she had to “shower” using a cup to dip water from a toilet.
She also said she had to “wash” her undergarments in that same toilet water.
With no way to dry her clothing after “washing” it, she said she had to put wet clothing back on.
Finally, she said her personal belongings and documents were soiled by water leaking from a toilet.
As Uphaus reports, Benitez “never encountered a single officer or agent who treated her with kindness and respect.”
At very least, Benitez is owed an apology. No one, regardless of citizenship status, deserves this type of treatment. We would hope that investigations would be opened into the ICE officers who carried out these acts so that they can be properly trained or dismissed.
Her story, however, goes far beyond the inhumane treatment she suffered.
Uphaus’ interview with Benitez, when read between the lines, points to unsettling questions about the ways we try to cram the immigration debate into poorly defined boxes, and what it says about the changing definition of what it means to be an American.
Open Borders vs. Legal Immigration
Benitez’s story is striking in the holes it exposes in the U.S. Immigration system, as it doesn’t fit neatly into a debate about open borders and legal immigration.
She came to the U.S. 13 years ago seeking asylum. At the time, El Salvador was recognized as a violent nation, with women in particular being vulnerable. Upon arrival, she was detained and given periodic appointments to attend. She secured a lawyer and began the process of applying for asylum.
Since that time, Benitez said that she “always followed through with all the instructions. Everything I was told to do, I made sure I did it…. I provided evidence for everything they asked of me.”
She stated, however, that delays in the process cost her the opportunity for asylum when her case finally landed in court. The judge reportedly said her case was “shocking” in the delays it had faced, which gave him no option but to deny the request. Then her lawyer supposedly failed to file her appeal without the appropriate supporting documents.
Through it all, she did what she legally needed to do to secure a job. She paid her taxes, and barring one minor traffic violation for which she paid a $30 fine, Benitez was never in legal trouble.
Based on these statements, Benitez came to the U.S. seeking asylum under a legitimate concern about violence, followed the rules, and was ultimately failed by an immigration system that is overwhelmed and grossly understaffed.
It’s not the story of someone exploiting open borders. Nor is it a story of someone trying to work around the legal system for immigrating to the United States.
Rather, it’s a classic example of the brokenness of the American immigration system and the need to seriously take on long-overdue reforms.
Who Is an American?
At its core, Benitez’s case raises an even more concerning question – Who is an American?
Based on the information that the Advance currently has at its disposal, while Benitez is not a U.S. citizen, she has for 13 years worked in good faith toward earning that status.
This places her in limbo, it does not make her a criminal or “illegal.”
What it means to be in limbo in America is a question that does not receive a great deal of attention. Perhaps that’s because until recently it hasn’t been hotly debated.
This fact was recently highlighted by an article in CNN:
In a 2014 joint interview, former Supreme Court justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia were asked a pressing legal question about immigrant rights.
Do the five freedoms mentioned in the First Amendment – freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition – apply to undocumented immigrants?
“Oh I think so, I think anybody who’s present in the United States has protections under the United States Constitution,” said Scalia, the reliable conservative voice.
Ginsburg, the stalwart liberal, agreed.
“When we get to the 14th Amendment, it doesn’t speak of ‘citizens.’ Some constitutions grant rights to ‘citizens,’ but our constitution says ‘person,’” she said. “And the ‘person’ is every person who is here – documented or undocumented.”
How we have moved from a place where conservatives and liberals alike defended the rights of immigrants to one where someone like Benitez can be rounded up, ridiculed, treated in a manner that is unbefitting of any human being needs to be a point of broad discussion in our society.
Where to begin that discussion? We can start here.
Benitez was born into a violent society, sought safety and freedom in America, drank from the waters of freedom and made a life for herself that gave her daughter opportunities she could not have had in El Salvador, and gave back to her community through service and relationships.
For that work, for following the rules that were given to her to become a citizen, and for being responsive to federal agents’ requests to check in, Benitez was rewarded with showering in a toilet and enduring the ridicule of her arrestors.
Despite all of that, Benitez today sits in El Salvador working again to return to America.
Why would she want to return?
Perhaps because Benitez understands something about America that many of us, left and right, have forgotten.
America – for all its troubles – still stands as a beacon of hope and still reigns as a land of opportunity. And America asks something of anyone who comes here — everyone who comes to these shores must not just take from its riches, but they must actively help to grow its abundance.
The left-wing and right-wing extremists in America — those most vocal, volatile, and often uninformed people who seem to constitute a greater and greater percentage of our populace — have lost sight of this.
Worse, they have no vested interest in reclaiming it. Their power rests in contemptuous argument not thoughtful debate.
Their numbers may be growing, but there is a quiet middle that is finding its voice. This middle is comprised of Democrats and Republicans, rich and poor, men and women, and people from across the country’s cultural expanse.
They’re grounded in reasoned debate, not self-righteous anger; they respect those who differ, not demand ideological purity.
Most of all, they are grounded in mutual respect for the ideals America has long represented. The very ideals that Benitez sees more clearly than many “real” Americans do today.
It’s time for the quiet middle to force this conversation.
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