I’m exhausted. Like my peers, my friends, I’m exhausted. I’m supposed to get on a flight in five days to go home for the first time in seven months, and now I don’t know if I should. I’m scared that this short trip can end up jeopardizing a future I’ve worked so hard to build.
One thing that doesn’t bring me any comfort is the questionable legality of all of this. America is at its most authoritarian at the border; border agents don’t think of legality, and neither do I when I’m being questioned by them.
Since 2016, I’ve been interviewed for at least 30 minutes by a border agent every time I’ve tried to enter the country. Every single time. I don’t think of what’s legal and what isn’t. And they know it. They make it painfully clear that my livelihood is in their hands, law aside.
I think solely of how to sound nice (i.e. white). I once had a border agent lose his mind in an interview after I admitted that I had been to Lebanon once, 12 years ago, on a tourism trip with my family. I had to explain how beautiful Lebanese mountains are (side note, they are).
Another time, a border agent was looking through my phone (there’s legality for you), and suddenly yelled “what’s this app with a lion on it?!” I said, “it’s the Premier League app. For soccer.” I had to open the app and show him Liverpool highlights. It was a fucking farce.
The authoritarian and arbitrary history of this country has always been most manifest in its treatment of minorities and immigrants. And it’s no different today. Don’t talk to me about legality, about rights. In their eyes, we’re owed none.
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