Opal Tometi Quotes
In my own personal experience, I've had different family members who have been held in immigration detention because they've had some sort of challenge financially, and they were making difficult decisions, and that led to their immigration detention and, eventually, deportation.
Joseph, Channing Gerard. "Opal Tometi on the Past, Present, and Future of Black Lives Matter." The Nation, 24 Jun. 2016.
At that time the Republicans had adopted a political strategy of not passing any significant legislation so that they could claim the Democratic President Barack Obama could not lead or do anything. They were committed to limiting Obama to one term. The Republicans controlled the House and had enough Senators to filibuster anything that happened in the Senate. During that period, there was hardly any legislation passed—one of the lowest points of Congressional paralysis and partisanship in American history.
In many cases, one spouse is a citizen and the other is not; or the parents might be but not the children; of the children were born in the United States but the parents were not citizens and had no documentation. Under the broken immigration system then, the government would actually deport one family member. Sometimes it was the breadwinner and the legal wife and children would then be forced onto welfare, the taxpayers would have to pay for a family that was doing fine until the government intervened; worst, the children would be kept apart from their father who could not even visit them thereafter. It was the only circumstance in the American system where government would actually destroy families when “family friendliness” was the official policy.
Opal Tometi is an American human rights activist, writer, strategist, and community organizer. She is a co-founder of Black Lives Matter (BLM). She is the former Executive Director of the United States’ first national immigrant rights organization for people of African descent, the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI).
