“SHAME “, While The Main-stream Media Does Cooking And Reality Shows.#1 In A Series:

Juan is Mexican; he tells me he has lived in the United States for over 20 years. I got to know him hav­ing done busi­ness with him over the years. Like most Mexican Immigrants in the city of Poughkeepsie, he is hard-work­ing, a ded­i­cat­ed fam­i­ly man. Then sud­den­ly I did not see him for a while, in sit­u­a­tions where peo­ple come and go it’s hard to say how long he was gone before I real­ized he was no longer around. Even then I though he may have just moved away. Then one day a few weeks ago he reap­peared, I was delight­ed to see him .

He tells me he has dri­ven with­out a licence for years because despite being in the United States for over 20 years he is clas­si­fied as an Illegal Alien. he relat­ed his sto­ry to me with deep melan­choly in his voice. He choked up at times ‚not want­i­ng to dis­play emo­tions ‚he would stop for a minute before con­tin­u­ing to relate his sto­ry. I have a fam­i­ly , my wife and kids , all I want to do is to pro­vide for them, my kids were born here. He gave me hor­ri­fy­ing accounts of dri­ving his car and a police cruis­er com­ing up behind him , he tells me some­times he is afraid to breathe , know­ing if he is pulled over he will be arrest­ed, his car con­fis­cat­ed jail time as pun­ish­ment. In fact he says, that is exact­ly what hap­pens to him on sev­er­al occa­sions. He would be hit with a hefty fine for dri­ving with­out a licence.He would then pay a licensed dri­ver to remove his car from the pound, pay the fine and tow­ing fees and start the process all over again. He tells me the last time he faced a judge the judge was tempt­ed to send him to prison, he was ter­ri­fied at the prospect of going to prison leav­ing his wife and kids with­out any means of sup­port , the judge told him he would be doing a year in jail. He said he told the judge “you can send me to jail and my fam­i­ly will starve, or you can fine me and I will find a way to pay”. The judge relent­ed and imposed a fine.

The last time he was arrest­ed (ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement came, they took him to a deten­tion cen­ter in New Jersey, then to Louisiana. He relat­ed the treat­ment met­ed out to him and oth­er detainees whilst on the flight from New Jersey to Louisana even while they were shack­led and bound. Crew mem­bers tossed sug­ar-buns and bot­tles of unre­frig­er­at­ed waters at them most of which fell on the floor of the plane. When they com­plained about being treat­ed that way they were told they were lucky to receive any­thing at all. The deten­tion cen­ter was just as bad Juan laments, most of the guards were Latinos, yet they were treat­ed like dirt. Frustrated and bewil­dered he asked one guard “how can you treat your own peo­ple this way” . The guard retort­ed “if you came over the fence ille­gal­ly you are a crim­i­nal”.

He was even­tu­al­ly sent back to his native Oaxaca where he imme­di­ate­ly under­took the per­ilous jour­ney back, brav­ing desert thirst, Unscrupulous Coyotes, hard-nosed bor­der-Agents and a whole list of oth­er chal­lenges. All so he could come back to the coun­try he has called home for over two decades to see his fam­i­ly. He knows the next time he is pulled over, the next time the police runs his ID, the night­mare begins anew . He tells me resigned­ly , I will just have to come back, I love my fam­i­ly. Juan’s Employer is tak­ing a chance hir­ing him, he tried to reg­u­lar­ize Juan’s sta­tus in the United States. The Government refused his peti­tion. The Obama Administration deport­ed a record 1.5 mil­lion peo­ple in his first term.