Not those greens! BUT your Lawful Permanent Resident Card (green cards) doesn’t protect you from Deportation.

Naturalize. Become a United States Citizen as soon as you can. Don’t delay, because you never want to chance sitting in immigration court facing deportation.

“I didn’t know I could be removed. My parents never talked to me about my status. I didn’t know I was different until it was too late.”

To Immigration and Customs Enforcement, United States Citizens are untouchable. Immigration law can’t touch them. I thought this was common knowledge. But I guess common knowledge isn’t so common. 

​Have you ever sat in a room, filled with grief? The only sounds you can hear are wailing, sniffling, and a tremble of the voice saying, “te quiero hijo” (I love you son). That was my Monday morning. 

​I was coming back from a long weekend with family and friends. It was wedding season and one of the hottest summer weekends. He, however, spent the whole weekend, detained in a jail cell. He was told when to shower, when to eat, and whether he could go outside. 

​He had spent all weekend thinking about his removal hearing. I came in early that morning to prepare his case. 

​He had decided not to fight his case. He wanted the quickest way out of the country if that meant he would get out of jail. He had a drug trafficking conviction. That meant he little options to legally stay in the U.S. 

The courtroom was filled with his family members. They all approached the television prompter, since his case was heard tele-video. He wasn’t physically sitting in the courtroom. He was televised from a jail cell somewhere in New Jersey. His family, crying, begged him through the screen not to leave. He father told him, “don’t sign anything.” He told him he needed him, he was sick. But, his son had already made his decision.

His father insisted, “please don’t leave, you don’t know Dominican Republic, you haven’t been there since you were 7.” His son calmly responded, “I’d rather be free in a country I don’t know than to be locked up and fight this case.”

His parents were devastated. He was the very reason they left the Dominican Republic. They saw so much potential inside their young son. “It’ll be okay,” their son assured. Just like that he took a removal order. He asked his family to pack him a small backpack. He wanted his two favorite shirts, a pair of jeans, and sneakers. Hi family’s unfulfilled dreams would travel back with their son too.

I wanted to disappear, but I couldn’t. I had to sit there in the discomfort of his suffering. I thought to myself, why didn’t he just naturalize? If he had, this entire moment could have been avoided.

This wasn’t the first time I saw this situation. Non-citizens grow up in this country, thinking that their clothes, their accent-free English, and American friends make them immune to deportation. It doesn’t. The law doesn’t care about those things. It needs a simple piece of paper saying you are a citizen. Without it, you’re not treated like a United States Citizen. Instead, you’re placed in deportation proceedings. It’s time we start the conversation with our Latinx communities.

What are you waiting for?