“Just Come Here Legally” and Other Bullshit From the Comfort of a Privileged Existence

They’re calling it Operation Patriot.
In the past month, over 1,500 people have been arrested across Massachusetts.
Forty of them were taken from Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket today.
Out of those forty, one had criminal charges. One was a sex offender.
Nothing is said about the other thirty-eight.

But that doesn’t matter to the public.
All they need is one excuse to cheer.
And they are cheering—everywhere.
The digital gallows where people celebrate the destruction of their neighbors.
“Good.”
“Send them back.”
“Just come here legally.”

Let me tell you what that really means.
It means: I’ve never been desperate.
It means: I’ve never seen my child go to bed hungry.
It means: I’ve never stood on the wrong side of an invisible line with nowhere else to go.

My mother crossed the Canadian border in 1972.
She was eight months pregnant with my little sister.
She didn’t have legal paperwork.
She had courage. She had a suitcase. And she had the will to survive.

Back then, if you gave birth in the United States, you had a path to stay.
The system still recognized life.
Now it only recognizes paperwork. Bureaucracy. Borders enforced by ICE.

“Just come here legally,” they say.
Do they have any idea what that process actually looks like?
If you’re poor, in a collapsing country with a corrupt government, and your family is starving, “legal immigration” isn’t just an application form—it’s a miracle.

Visas are limited, expensive, and often corrupt.
You need bribes. You need connections.
You need doctor’s letters. Police clearances.
You need to wait years—while your life unravels and your hope erodes.
And even if you do everything “right,” it’s still not enough.

I was under 18 when my parents sponsored me. Still a minor.
It still took over six months to get here.
And that was with a previously filed application being reopened—not even starting from scratch.
My family had to pay for every single piece of paper.

And I still remember how hard it was.
I had to make the choice to leave my children behind—because otherwise it would have taken years.
So don’t tell me “just come here legally.”
Not unless you’re ready to trade lives.

The people being arrested are not just numbers.
They are farmworkers. Kitchen staff. Hotel housekeepers. Laborers.
Mothers. Daughters. Fathers. Sons.
They hold this country together in invisible ways.

You want to end undocumented immigration? Then you do it legally, fairly.
Start with immigration laws that issue far fewer visas to countries with Black and Brown faces than to countries with white ones.
Start with the corporations that exploit the system.
Start with the structures that profit off invisibility.
Go after the people writing checks, not the ones scrubbing your bathrooms and harvesting your food.

But you won’t do that.
Because it’s easier to punish the person holding the broom than the one holding the contract.
This isn’t about law.
It’s about targeting the poor and vulnerable while letting the rich and complicit off without a glance.

It’s easy to feel secure when the spotlight isn’t on you.
When your name sounds familiar.
When your skin matches the tone of the times.
When your story has never been questioned.

But ask yourself—what happens when that shifts?
And if you cheer while they disappear your neighbors, don’t be surprised when they eventually come for you, too.
You ignore the suffering of others because their pain is the price of your comfort.

You’re not threatened by immigration.
You’re threatened by the fact that they might want to sit at the same table as you.
So stop pretending this is about law.
We all know it’s about keeping the status quo.