On why the travel ban strikes too close to home….
Of course the travel ban does not include India and I’m free
to travel in the time being! But the sheer arbitrariness applied in the
selection of the countries upon which the ban has been imposed in unsettling
and fear inducing to say the least.
To all those who wish to remain silent in the face of this
inhuman atrocity, I wish to remind - that it could very well be you stranded in
an airport somewhere, suddenly removed from a life that you have established
while your loved ones scramble to make sense of a world from which you are
absent.
As a first generation immigrant from India, I am all too
familiar with the immigration and the visa policies of the US. They are some of
the most stringent policies in the world, to which thousands of people like
myself have willfully subjected ourselves with the understanding that it is
essential for the country to have confidence in the people that it brings into
her protection. The process is a long drawn one, involving reams of paperwork;
interviews and fingerprinting to make sure that you are a decent human.
It isn’t easy and there are no assurances of getting a visa
or a green card simply because you have applied for one or have been patient.
What shocks me is that after all that, this government still
assumes its okay to simply pull the rug from under the feet of millions of
innocent people, be it, green card holders who have spent decades formulating a
life in here, educated professionals of Syria whose life has been turned upside
down by war, mothers with young children who are forced to leave home with only
just as many belongings as that they can carry, young boys of Sudan who have
had to walk miles and miles to get away from their oppressors or Iraqi citizens
who have worked along with American soldiers and assisted them……… what sense
does it even make??
International travel is hardly romantic, especially when
undertaken in the confines of the economy class, which composes of the majority
of the world populace. Very often the
only factor that encourages one to repeat travel is the simple joy of being
re-united with loved ones or beloved friends.
And now, to imagine being stranded in an airport somewhere, forced to
return without being able to hold your loved ones or in worse cases to return
to the very scum that you were trying to protect your family from is both
appalling and inhuman.
I cannot imagine being stuck with my young children in an
airport somewhere not sure if I can return to the life that we’ve worked hard
to create out here or for my kids and myself to be stranded here in the US
while their travelling father is informed that he cannot return.
Its time to put yourself in the shoes of those immigrants
and imagine your life from their perspective for a change!
Before you pride yourself with the life that this country
has offered its immigrants it is time to wonder about what they have had to
lose to accept your offering.
