5/3/20

By Josh Rubin

To say that these are strange times is too weak a description, but there is little point in struggling for stronger terms; we are all living in it. I think we all owe ourselves some sympathy for our personal struggles. Some of us have had the virus brush closer to us than others, and some very close indeed. We are fragile creatures, and these tribulations remind us, or teach us, that.

But some of us keep our eyes on the plight of people who remain the special victims of cynical and sadistic policies, people whose homes have become untenable, by poverty and violence. They have left in search of a place to survive, something which has gone on as long as people have been around, as we radiated from Africa, and found, generation after generation, new and hopeful places to inhabit.

I am speaking of migrants, refugees, people searching for a home. And I am speaking of a political class that tells itself all kinds of lies to justify denying others a place, and a share in the fruits of the earth. And I am speaking of how some of us have chosen to continue working on this issue, the cause of human justice for migrants, and for the poor, as the North Star that keeps our course steady on very rough, often personally tragic seas.

This week we will watch as ICE Air continues its deportations and reshuffling of its captives, playing three-card monte with deadly contagion. As a Florida judge orders its prisons emptied, ICE will likely move its charges to states with judges more beholden to that class that believes its own lies, in its own self-interest.

Watch with us. Witness with us. Although most of us are trapped behind doors and windows, crouching in fear of a world turned upside down, we can still see the stars, we can still remember the road we are on. Our own imprisonment will not last forever.

And, perhaps, neither will theirs.