By DIANA NORWOODLos Alamos
As everyone’s voicing their opinions on “current immigration policies”… here’s what’s actually happening. My mother is “at this very moment”, being fingerprinted, and back ground checked at a facility in Santa Fe. My mother, Lilly, is a “legal immigrant” with a permanent green card for almost 60 years. She’s the wife of a retired U.S. Army Major. My father is a veteran of Korea and Viet Nam. My mother has a social security card, a U.S. military ID card, and a New Mexico drivers license … and has been a New Mexico resident for well over 30 years. She has a perfect driving record.
She attempted to renew her drivers license. The new criteria is: you must have a birth certificate or a valid passport. My mother has never had a birth certificate … they didn’t have those in Germany back then; were only issued a “baptismal certificate”; that doesn’t count. Her passport is expired, since she doesn’t travel outside the U.S. any longer. As a nearly last resort; they used her “alien green card number”… the computer came back with: “invalid number”. We’re told that the New Mexico MVD computer has problems communicating with Homeland Security computers. And now … “my mother” is at immigration in Santa Fe, being treated like an “illegal immigrant”; for the time being.
Some of you might ask; “why didn’t your mother become a U.S. citizen?” Funny thing; she tried to do that once. At the time; she couldn’t complete the process because you had to “physically” reside in the U.S. for 10 years, and unfortunately for us; my father was stationed “overseas”.
At this moment; I am “very” concerned … I can only imagine how frightening this is for my mother. If I wasn’t frightened; as well, I might very well be horrifically angry. I’m fairly sure that I’m losing what’s left of my mind. Technically; at this moment, my mother could be detained and/or deported! That seems incredibly absurd, and totally ridiculous … but true! This is what we’ve become?!
Seems to me something has gone very wrong with the obsession of “keeping the bad folks out”.
