3/1/21

By Josh Rubin

You want to move your family to North Carolina. Some of your family already lives there. They went a few years ago when they heard there was work there, building furniture. Some farm work. Rents are not high, especially if you are willing to tolerate the smell of pig farms when the wind shifts in the spring.

The situation at home is not good. Your children are oppressed by the poverty you live in. Often there is not enough to eat. There is crime. It is hard to leave. It is harder to stay.

If you are coming from a depressed area in Appalachia, you have obstacles. You need to save enough to move. You may need to rely on your relatives to help. It’s not easy to get credit, and without credit things can be very rough. The social safety net is full of holes, isn’t it?

If you have to cross national borders, imaginary lines drawn by the tensions of history and economy, it is going to be a lot harder. In fact, you are going to risk death. If you arrive at one of those borders now, you are likely to be turned back. You may need to spend time in border zones where the money you saved and the money your relatives on the other side had for you is spent on ransom to kidnappers or on people who promise to get you across. You may face rules that separate your children from you, and hold them in detention. You hope they will be all right, protected from the danger you find yourself in, in the most dangerous places on earth.

You may disappear. Many have. The children you sent across will suffer trauma behind fences. Your relatives, afraid because they are undocumented, may not claim the children.

Life is hard enough. We don’t have to do it this way.