This past weekend, I returned home for the first time since winter break, and was met with an enormous shift in my community. I live on one of the busiest avenues in Richmond Hill, known not only for its large Guyanese population, but also for being the hub of life, music, and Caribbean food, almost constantly. I come from a place full of energy and pride in who we are, and where we come from. I come from a place where everyone has a story--and in some cases, it sounds the same. Guyana is one of the poorest countries in the world with a corrupt government, blurred poverty line, and underdeveloped education system. Many of its citizens migrate to the U.S as soon as they obtain approval, and pray that they will find refuge in the economy, government, and education system. While many of these people make this trip legally, it would be dishonest to say that all of them do. More often than not out of fear and desperation, they make the journey and pray that immigration won’t send them back to what they’re running from.
My community is made up of these people--some of the good, and some of the bad. We are united in the ways that we struggle to land, and remain safe here. My neighbors have lived swallowing guilt and fear for years before working up the courage to become permanent residents; most of the time too afraid or proud to give up their identities to become citizens. My neighbors are also those who never find their courage. They are the quiet, keep-their-head-down kind of people, who work six days a week and make sure they’re in temple on Sunday morning. The kind of people you trust to babysit your children after school, or hold your hand when apartment fires take everything you have.
This weekend, I came home to learn that my neighbors had retreated to their apartments with locked doors and shut blinds. Richmond Hill, among many other neighborhoods, have been flooded with immigration raids for the past few weeks. They are happening in grocery stores, laundromats, restaurants, bars, and public workplaces. People are approached, asked for valid forms of ID, and if they’re unable to provide, they are arrested. In a recent raid of the grocery store across the street from my house, over 100 people were arrested, and only 41 were released. About 65 people--moms, dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles--went to the grocery store that day, and never came back.
There is fear, now. Everywhere. These raids are horrifying and fast and everywhere. Richmond Hill does not stand alone or apart in any way; communities known to be heavily immigrant-populated are being terrorized. And the worst part about it? I had no idea. And I’m not the only one. The immigration ban was a horror of its own kind, and these raids prove that. It doesn’t stop at the airports--not anymore.
And so where do we go from here? Are we supposed to send everyone back to nothing? Are we supposed to ask these people to pick up their entire lives--their homes, their jobs, their children--and take them back, to nothing?
We don't need anymore raids--we need reforms. We need positive, united, change.
