As I had the honor of sitting with our ACLU attorneys in court last week during a multi-day hearing in our class action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – I thought about my father and where I have come from.
I am the daughter and granddaughter of immigrants.
Our suit seeks to enjoin the government’s pattern and practice of arresting immigrants without warrants or probable cause, in violation of federal law. This case has held a unique level of gravity in my heart.
My dad emigrated from China to escape Japanese invasion in the early 1940’s. He came to the United States as a young child – life in this country was the only life he knew. When I would ask him if he wanted to go back or even visit, the answer was a definitive no. America was his home, no question.
He grew up in a tenement in New York City’s Chinatown, made his way out of poverty, went to college, and became an architect. He owned his own small architectural firm for many years and had, by many standards, achieved the American Dream – got married, had two children, and was able to support a life for us in the suburbs of New Jersey. Because my father was quite the linguist and violinist, he found purpose in supporting his new immigrant friends’ children – helping them to secure acceptance to colleges like Cornell University and mentoring young musicians through an intergenerational orchestra. He was a man of service and was afforded the opportunities that so many immigrants seek for themselves and their children when they come to the United States – safety from harm in their country of origin and a path towards a better life.
All the while, despite the realization of many of his dreams, my father still did not possess the necessary documents to be living here permanently. There was some worry – he had put off applying out of some concern about putting himself under the microscope of scrutiny. The fears of Chinese exclusion don’t fade easily.
A key witness in our case is a 28-year-old man who’s been living in Ohio since he was 16. He’s lived in Canton for 11 years and is the single parent of his 7-year-old daughter. He takes care of her, picking her up from school every day after work- at a job he’s held steadily for 5 years. They attend church every Sunday, and his ties to the community are strong.
In February, while driving to work, he was surrounded by immigration officers, pulled out of his car by force, handcuffed, and driven an hour away to an ICE processing facility in another city. The officers had no warrant, or probable cause to arrest him; they did not even know his name. On the long drive, he told the officers he was worried that no one would be there to pick up his daughter after school.
This was his first interaction with law enforcement; he has no criminal record. This young man has been held in detention ever since and spoke to the court through a video feed from a private prison in Youngstown. When asked about his daughter he said,
“She depends on me.”
He hasn’t seen his daughter in three months.
These words landed heavily on me. While my family flew under the radar, many do not, especially now, under the cruel, aggressive tactics of the Trump Administration. Given the wrong circumstances, this situation could have been me – as a 7-year-old, living your worst nightmare as your parent is taken away and detained. We also depended on my father.
This brings me to an age old question – “Who gets to be American?” Just because my family spoke English without accents and “appeared stereotypically Asian American,” we escaped questioning? Did the target move from the backs of Chinese immigrants to those of Latinx descent? Even when lacking warrants or probable cause, federal agents, incentivized by arrest quotas, have been turned loose to follow their hunches and determine who gets to live in peace in America and who does not.
My family came to this country for safety and for opportunity – not for a country where freedom felt scarce. Warrantless arrests and stoking the fires of a mass deportation machine are not part of MY America. America’s strength is the diversity that built it.
This is why our class action lawsuit against DHS, CBP, and ICE is so deeply and personally important. As you look around at your community, there are likely more people than you realize who could have been that 7-year-old whose father is in detention.
Our country is better than this, we are better than this, and I am so proud that the ACLU of Ohio is litigating this case so we can live under the law in a society that practices compassion, not cruelty.
