No Voice

Jamya, Age 10, New York

I began patting the black leather seats and thinking about how I got to skip school on this windy Thursday morning. As my mom began to speed up, I could hear the tires screeching. I wanted to tell her to slow down because my life was in her hands. That only would make her more upset than she already was. When we hit a red light, she looked at me.  I pretended I could not see her, but when I looked at her I saw a dark soul for a sec. I wanted to ask her what was wrong, but I did not want to be nosey. And suddenly a breeze hit me. I focused on where the apple cinnamon and orange peels scent were coming from. Wait! Orange peels. My dad loves to give me oranges. I have not talked to my dad. I reached for my mom’s phone and she yelled, “Sit back “. I was hesitant to ask if I could use my phone to call my dad, but I did anyway and she told me her phone was dead, while I could clearly see it was fully charged.  So, I turned to my sister and asked to use her phone and when my sister whispered to my mom, “you have to tell her”. “Tell me what?” I asked, and my mom began to tell me what? “Princess it’s about your dad.” As soon as she said princess, I knew something was wrong because that word doesn’t come around often.

My mom continued: ICE was watching your dad for a couple of weeks and when he was getting in his van to go to work they locked him up. The ICE officers didn’t pat him down correctly. He still has his cell phone in his pocket. Your dad is so terrified he spelled immigration with three g’s when he texted me. ICE cannot know he has his phone. I began to cry.  My mom and sister began to pass me tissues. All I could do was pray that we would have a repeat of 2010 and a hurricane or something would happen to cause the government to send him back and he wouldn’t have to go back to a country he hasn’t been in over 30 years. 

Dad was put on a plane at 6 a.m. on January 16, 2018: The same day of his 10 a.m. court hearing. 

They kept my dad in a tiny jail in Haiti where deportees are kept until someone pays to get them out or until someone comes to claim you like you’re a piece of luggage. My father has no family in Haiti. The same good friend who was deported back to Haiti in the 80’s, when he and my dad were really young for a drug offense, was kind enough to pick my dad up from jail and allow him to live in his basement. 

My dad was taken from me for a nonviolent crime he committed 30 years ago.

Nobody seems to are about sending my father back to Haiti. Nobody thinking or caring how it will change our lives – No more science camps. No more afterschool dance. No more math club programs. No More chats about our day with dad! All I could think about is what am I going to do on Fridays.  I would no longer be able to spend Fridays with dad, who left work early to pick up my brother and me from school. He would take us to fun places like the Atlantic Mall, where we would get Pizza and play games at Chuck E. Cheese.  We would also go to Brooklyn Bridge Park to play and get ice cream. We would also hang out at Dave and Busters, where he would spend an arm and leg on us.  You stole a very important part of me – My Dad!

I have a passport and I will eventually see my dad again. But, I dream of an America who knows how many children, like me, cry every night, though you don’t hear Our Voices.

I pray to God you will use Your Voice to bring my dad home.