A Knock at the Door

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
— Desmond Tutu

It’s easy to ignore oppression if you never meet a victim face-to-face. Most of the world learned of the true horrors of World War II years after its conclusion. Today, we are in the middle of a new war and despite the prevalence of social media and 24/7 news coverage, the stories of the victims are rarely told.

This week, I met one of these victims and I am going to tell you his story.

At 4:21am our flight lands at Manila airport. Hannah and I are both exhausted as we wait in the terminal for our connection to Bangkok. As we wait, a tall 20-year-old man with a dark complexion wearing grey sweatpants and a grey sweatshirt gives me a big smile and sits down next to me. I smile back and he introduces himself to me as Intisar. He asks me where I’m from and I tell him. I ask him the same, and he tells me his story.

Intisar is from Texas. He is studying IT and just married the love of his life a few months ago. He was with her when in the middle of the night he heard a knock at the door. Two agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) demanded to come inside. Intisar, who has never had a run-in with the law, obliged. The agents were there for him. They told Intisar that he was being deported back to Bangladesh. Intisar pleaded with them. He is a student. He is married to a U.S. Citizen. Doesn’t that count for something? His pleas fell on deaf ears because the ICE agents were following Donald Trump’s orders. Would Intisar’s fate have been different if he weren’t a Muslim?

For the next month Intisar would live apart from his wife in a detention facility in Texas. In his brief appearance before a judge he asked for a bond and was denied. When Intisar tells me this I am stunned. I ask him if he has a lawyer. He tells me he can’t afford one. I ask him if he knows that he has constitutional rights despite not being a citizen. He shakes his head and looks down at the floor in front of him and then looks up and smiles again.

His smile catches me by surprise. He is alone. He has no phone, no luggage, and just spent the last month locked up as a prisoner after being denied his constitutional rights. Yet, he is smiling. He believes in America. He says he will apply for a visa from Bangladesh and will come back and be with his wife in just a few months. I am quiet. I don’t have the heart to tell him how unlikely it will be for him to be able to return after being forcibly deported by ICE.

I give him my contact information and ask him to contact me when he gets to Bangladesh. Hannah and I shake his hand and we wish him luck. I tell him I’m sorry for what we have done to him and his family.

Today, we are at war. But with whom? Who is the oppressor and who are the oppressed?

In 1934, Adolf Hitler rose to power in a wave of nationalism driven by a desire to make Germany great again. In 2016, Donald Trump rose to power in a wave of nationalism driven by a desire to make America great again.

Within months of rising to power, Hitler began instituting policies to forcibly deport Jews. Within months of rising to power, Trump began instituting policies to forcibly deport Muslims.

In 1945, at the conclusion of the war, the world woke up to the atrocities that were committed in the name of nationalism. Some of the most astonished were the German people themselves who never knew the full extent of what their country had done.

What will we say in 2020? Will we look back at today and ask ourselves why we did nothing? Will we be able to explain our inaction to our children? To our grandchildren?

You or someone you know may be the next one to get a knock at the door.

There are three things you can today to make a difference:

1. Share this story on Facebook and Twitter.
2. Share these resources: the ACLU offers a great resource for what to do if ICE agents are at your door and the ILRC offers printable red cards that explain the rights the U.S. Constitution grants to non-citizens.
3. Make a donation to the ACLU.

I’d like to end this post by sharing a poem by Martin Niemöller, who was a Protestant pastor who spent seven years in a Nazi concentration camp:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

— Martin Niemöller