People hear the word “immigration” and immediately think of crime, chaos or a crisis at the border.
What they don’t think about is how crushingly hard it is to go through the immigration process correctly, follow the rules, pay the fees, file the paperwork and still live every day with fear and uncertainty.
That’s what gets me. It’s the total lack of empathy from those who’ve never dealt with it.
I’ve met people who’ve spent thousands of dollars and waited years just to have their status reviewed. I heard the stories of immigrants who did everything “right” only to be detained without warning, treated like criminals and thrown into legal limbo.
It’s easy to say, “Just get in line.” But what line? There’s no single path. U.S. immigration law is one of the most complicated systems in the world. It’s a tangle of forms, fees, agencies, interviews, deadlines and sudden rule changes.
Even immigration lawyers sometimes struggle to keep up. For most people, the process isn’t just confusing; it’s impossible to navigate without expert help, which can cost thousands.
And for what? To be told your case is pending – for years. To check your mailbox with anxiety every day. To be pulled over for a traffic violation and wonder if it could lead to deportation. Even people with legal status walk on eggshells, never sure when the rules will change or how ICE will interpret them.
We need to stop pretending that following the law guarantees fairness or protection. It doesn’t.
Recently, I read a news story about a well-known African restaurant in Boston (where I used to live) called Suya Joint. The restaurant owner is determining what is next for the establishment because Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained Paul Dama, the restaurant’s manager and the owner’s brother.
Dama came to the U.S. in 2019 and has an asylum application pending. No criminal charges. No explanation. He was picked up on his way to church and held in a detention facility in New Hampshire.
According to reports, his family has been working hard to find legal help while trying to keep the business afloat. Luckily, Dama had his first hearing before an immigration judge and must reapply for his asylum visa before his next court date. His story isn’t unique.
Right now, ICE is holding around 50,000 people in detention. Many have never been charged with a crime. Some are undocumented. Others, like Dama, are in the middle of legal proceedings.
Over the last decade, ICE has detained people nearly 3 million times and now billions more are being poured into expanding this machinery of separation and silence.
We’ve normalized the idea that people should suffer in silence for trying to build a life here, even when they do everything the system asks of them. And because immigration is so complex, most Americans just don’t understand it. So instead of compassion, they offer suspicion. Instead of empathy, they say, “It’s the law.”
And when we stop seeing immigrants as people, with families, jobs, dreams and struggles, we make it easier to accept a system that destroys lives quietly and bureaucratically.
I didn’t write this to defend lawbreakers. I wrote this because so many people are trying to do things the right way and they’re still being punished.
Until we have an honest conversation about what the immigration process looks like and the toll it takes on real human beings, we will never build a system that’s fair or humane.
