10 Comments
User's avatar
Me's avatar
7dEdited

Thank you for your essay. This nightmare scenario keeps me awake at night. I've started carrying my passport in my glove box in case I get stopped or pulled over by ice. My husband, a brown man, is an American citizen born here. However that doesn't really make a difference does it? He recently purchased a camera for his car "just in case". I truly never thought our country would come to this.

Cryn Johannsen's avatar

I'm so sorry about your husband having to carry a passport. My fiancé is also a brown man. Right now, he doesn't carry his passport, which worries me.

Me's avatar

My mom, who is ethnically Chinese, just got her new passport at my insistence. I told her she should keep it with her and she might need it if we have to suddenly leave the country.

Dr Chalette Griffin's avatar

Yes, I have my passport in my tote bag just in case I’m stopped. Every Black and brown person need to carry their passport on them. Besides, if things go super sideways in America, you may have to make a mad dash to the airport. Just saying 🤷🏽‍♀️.

Me's avatar

Good point. My daughter lives in Rochester, New York. We have a family plan that if things get out of control we'll all meet up there, closer to the border.

Dr Chalette Griffin's avatar

👏🏾That’s an excellent plan and very smart to think and plan the worse case scenario.

Cryn Johannsen's avatar

I hear you, Dr. Griffin, and I understand.

Franklin Oliver's avatar

Thank you!

Donald Nathan's avatar

Immediately to the south of us is Mount Prospect, Illinois, a town with many undocumented residents, most of them, Muslim. ICE agents have been scrounging around from time to time.

Where yet was the ICE raid at my grandson’s Chute junior high school in Evanston, Illinois in a neighborhood populated by people from soup to nuts. For some inexplicable reason, I am unable to persuade his mother, my youngest daughter, to move away from that area closer to us in a Chicago suburb where the Chicago Bears now own a 326 acre plot of land that used to be the situs of a horse racetrack.

Unfortunately, these are realities. We are going to have to face them - all of us.

Elizabeth Silleck La Rue, Esq.'s avatar

They do deserve and need to be made to feel like pariahs, absolutely. I also want to say as your friend, please be safe.