This Is Personal

It's been a rough week - dear Audrius' attempt to present his case fell on deaf ears in the immigration court. It would be one thing if he presented his case and it was not deemed credible, but to have the whole of it casually brushed aside and not even heard as if his life and the lives of his family and friends do not even matter - that is shameful. Now I know why the immigration hearings in this country are closed to the public - they most definitely do have something to hide! To those who are watching who come from other countries, please know - this is not American justice. This is not American at all. It is some perversion, some illness that has somehow caught hold and it must be healed.

Audrius finally told me the whole of what had been done to him back in Eastern Europe in the nineties. He is a big and very powerful man, but hearing how they strapped him down and tortured him with live electrical wires, finding out those scars I've noticed on him were caused by torture - that just tore my heart out. I have seen this man hold his children in his arms and tenderly comfort them. I have known him to hunt for hours in a raging storm to find a strangers lost puppy. I have witnessed many times when an injustice or a hurt to another has instantly commanded his full attention. He never turns away from suffering. He always cares and yet this was done to him and may be done to him again - he could even be killed and it seems few people care or even want to hear about it.

As a brief personal aside I must say: Audrius is a rare kind of friend. He's always been there for me as long as I've known him. He is one of few who knows how to bring me back to action when I feel the world is just too much and want to curl up on the couch and cry and those few are the people I value most in my life. Now I learn I was not there for him when he was being tortured horribly and threatened with death. Granted, I did not know him then, but it still hurts - it hurts deeply. What was I doing while this was being done to him? How was I able to look away and concern myself only with my own simple affairs while so much harm was coming to one who was destined to become such an integral part of my life?

Some of my friends tell me, "Deb, you can't save the world," and that is true, but I sure as hell can do something to save a little part of it! How many other friends that I have yet to meet are now suffering something as bad as what Audrius went through? How many are suffering worse? I find it embarrassing when people praise me for what I am doing now as if I were making some sort of noble personal sacrifice. This is no sacrifice! I'm doing this for me. This is my friend - and my future friends I'm concerned with. There is no such thing as "That's not my problem," when it comes to human rights. When we start to believe that, we are the ones who ultimately loose. No, I can't save the world, but when the affairs of the world affect me, I must act to save myself - and only a fool would think that the affairs of the world will not affect him personnally in some way eventually.

There is a saying in this country: "What goes around, comes around." Trite, but so true! I am a citizen of a country that is presently committing some terrible human rights violations against some decent immigrants who have never done us a disservice. How is that going to come around? It's costing us already.

By the way, not that it matters one bit as to the nationality of whose rights are being violated, but let me point out that of the dozen or so immigrants I'm helping now, not one is Hispanic and only one was here illegally. I have to repeat that from time to time as the media would have you think it's all illegal Mexicans and terrorists that ICE is dealing with. Nope - big lie!

The actions of this country against it's most vulnerable inhabitants directly affects the future of us all. I'll be damned if I'm going to sit idly by while ICE casually plays dirty with my future. Those who are in trouble - those who I am working to help owe me no thanks. The only people who do owe me are those who are sitting on their rears and not speaking up or doing a thing to help in any way. It's their future at stake as well and I'm putting in ten to fourteen hour days in front of this computer on beautiful sunny days when I would much rather be outside because of their inaction. They are the only ones who owe me. They owe me and they owe every single other person who is actively engaged in trying to restore Liberty and Justice to this country. But hey, what goes around comes around, and this in the end will come around too.