Don’t Leave the Room!
By Stephen Wilson, one of our reporters abroad
“Don't leave the room, don't commit that fateful mistake,
Why risk the sun? Just settle back at home and smoke,
Outside 's absurd, It's not exactly France outside…”
So goes part of a poem by the exiled poet Joseph Brodsky. The poem perhaps expresses the eccentric sense of humour which could be tongue and cheek as it could simply reflect the fear of a hypochondriac afraid of succumbing to sunstroke. On a more serious note, it could be construed as how fear can make an inner prison of the soul. The line 'lock and barricade yourself in,' suggests a deeply-rooted feeling of paranoia where the person feels terrified of opening the door as well as just to do mundane things such as shopping in a local supermarket. Whether Brodsky's poem had in mind the experience of an illegal migrant or refugee scared to leave the room in case he is picked up, detained and deported is unlikely. Nevertheless, readers often interpret poems in ways unanticipated by the original author.
The surreal lines of this absurd poem have assumed an uncanny air as the American state is attempting to overturn the sanctuary status for migrants and refugees in Chicago and seek to detain and deport them en masse. For those people now, often, as the Brodsky poem goes, choose the option of 'Don't Leave the Room.' Going onto the streets each time leads to more exposure to being arrested.
Teachers have noticed that many of their students are not surfacing at schools and colleges. They've just vanished. In Los Angeles, for example, around an estimated 20% of students {80,000 students} have been absent from schools recently.
The callous decision to revoke the rights of 300,000 refugees under a programme, {i.e., those living and applying under the Temporary Deportation Protection scheme}, the constant raids by the Immigration Customs Enforcement agents and the illegal attempts to blatantly violate the sanctuary status of cities, and the threat to send refugees and migrants to a prison in Guantanamo bay {a place synonymous with torture} has created a hostile environment full of fear.
Trump and his government seek to turn what has long been viewed as a civil offence into a crime. We see a ruthless and relentless media campaign to criminalise and dehumanise migrants—suggesting they all have horns coming out of their ears.
And what is it like to live as an illegal migrant against the background of mass arrests? You certainly stop leaving the room so much! 'It can be very stressful to live illegally. ‘Stop and search’ by the local police can be a constant everyday worry! As a result, you keep your eyes constantly peeled. You learn to avoid certain places which the police more regularly patrol or stop and question people. You begin to walk only along particular streets or routes. Whenever you see a policeman you feel a sense of dread. You wonder whether this person will arrest you. So the sight of a police uniform usually evokes more intense fear from you than from a usual person on the streets. There is always this fear that you might be arrested and the fragile security you have built up over years comes crashing down on you. A deportation might mean you lose your job, family, home, health, and very life ! You get into absurd habits over time. Like you never leave the house without first peering out of a window to see who is out there, or never answer the door when someone rings. You develop your own play safe maps of the city which you try and stick to.
When you see a policeman walking your way you can drop into a shop. The shop assistant wonders why you don't buy anything and stay for so long. You tell them “I'm just looking.” It is a difficult situation indeed. “But why would anyone want to be just looking at everything in a small stall which simply sells sweets ?” asked one illegal migrant who lives in Russia.
It comes as no great revelation that research indicates a high level of mental distress among migrants and refugees. And small wonder if you ever listen to some of the traumatic events that people have experienced. They have faced repression in their home countries, braved forests, and deserts where they have heard of how some of their friends and relatives have died from either intense cold, dehydration or drowning. The impact of Trump's new campaign has been likened to an atomic bomb being dropped on the migrant community! It has shattered so many people.
Not all the migrants taking time off school are staying in their rooms. Some are campaigning for the rights and putting out stickers, flyers with know your rights and leaflets explaining the real facts and not the lies perpetuated by some social media sites and the mass media.
Some important points need to be made. Firstly, this crackdown not only affects migrants and refugees but can potentially threaten any citizen. The officers of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agenc(ICE) are under huge pressure to quckly fulfill a quota of arrested people. As a result, even many American citizens are being arrested and detained simply because they can't produce any documents or their documents are not recognised.
Despite possessing certificates of Indian blood and state issued I.D.s, ICE agents do not recognise those documents as proof of citizenship. The chiefs of American Native Americans have complained that their people have been detained and that Ice refuses to recognize legitimate documents confirming their identity. A spokesperson for the Navajo tribe Shondinn Silversmith, complained, “We know that Navajo people and enrolled members of other tribes are being detained in Phoenix and other cities by ICE.” In fact, one unnamed woman was held for 9 hours by agents (https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/012425_navajo_citizenship/reports-navajo-people-being-detained-immigration-sweeps-sparks-concern-from-tribal-leaders/).
Some people are facing a problem where law enforcement bodies are taking the law into their own hands and see themselves as above the law. Yet they accused migrants of being 'criminals.' The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claims, “They illegally broke our nation's law, and therefore are criminals as far as this administration goes” (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-press-secretary-says-all-illegal-immigrants-arrested-criminals-thats-exactly-what-are).
Actually, American law states they are not criminals but civil offenders.
This is a huge difference which this administration has no wish to grasp.
Another blatant lie is that the migrants are overwhelmingly involved in criminal drug cartels. But proper research indicates that as few as 600 migrants out of a population of 600,000 have alleged links to those gangs. This works out as way less than 1 percent and not the 90 percent which this administration claims. The administration either can't do basic elementary arithmatic or are just implacable bigots who only want to hear what they want to hear.
You rarely read in the media how migrants and refugees in America boost the American and British economies and are the backbone of the medical health services not to mention essential in the care of the elderly and abandoned. A shortage of migrant labour will prevent people recovering from the damage caused by recent fires. You hardly ever hear how migrants simply want peace to work hard and raise their children to be good people.
School teachers are rightly indignant that the administration threatens them and others from resisting their attempts to come into schools and forcefully remove children. Why would any teacher want to let someone try and traumatize their students?
On a recent protest one teacher held up a placard with these words:
“If you wanted us to stand aside, and let ICE take out students, maybe you shouldn't have conditioned us to be willing to take a bullet for them.”
It's impossible for us to disagree with such sentiments.