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Emily Gorrivan is an immigration lawyer in Maine.
“She would have been so afraid.”
Last weekend, my 93-year-old grandfather said this about my late grandmother, who immigrated from Morocco when she was 26 years old. He meant that if she were alive, she would be afraid to encounter Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), particularly in light of the agency’s recent operation in Maine.
Just as my Moroccan heritage is central to my identity — and to why I became an immigration attorney — so too is my upbringing in a small town 30 minutes outside Portland. Especially in recent weeks, the divide between my views and those of many people I grew up with has become stark.
I believe immigration detention is unjust and inhumane. I believe the vilification of non-citizens is morally wrong. I believe asylum is a human right.
Yet I see people I grew up with — people I know to be kind and empathetic — expressing hostility toward immigrants and supporting aggressive immigration enforcement. I struggle to understand how these views coexist with the values of decency and fairness I was raised to believe Maine stands for.
I must believe that if the people I know and love truly grasped the horrors unfolding, they would declare that this has gone too far. To those people: I want to share my perspective. I am your friend, your former student, your relative, your neighbor. You know me, and I hope you will listen.
I work with asylum seekers. I sit with people as they tell me about the unimaginable horrors they have survived — political persecution, torture, violence and threats to their families. I speak daily with people who are deeply afraid and uncertain about their futures.
I ask those of you who are anti-immigration or pro-ICE: What would you do if the U.S. government persecuted you for your political beliefs? What if there was nowhere in this country you could safely live? If the government threatened to hurt you and your family, would you not flee? Would you not do everything in your power to protect your family?
That instinct — to seek safety — is universal. And it is exactly what the asylum seekers that I work with are doing. We all want safety, freedom and dignity for our families. That same desire is why my family came to the United States and, unless you are Indigenous, likely why your family did as well.
This ICE operation in Maine has instilled lasting terror among our immigrant neighbors. People are now afraid to leave their homes — to go to the grocery store, to take their children to school, to drive their car. I have heard reports from community members of ICE smashing car windows. I’ve spoken to people whose friends and family have disappeared, only to surface thousands of miles away in detention facilities in places like Louisiana.
ICE reports arresting more than 200 Mainers in recent days, many of whom are asylum seekers with no criminal history. These are your neighbors. Your coworkers. The people whose restaurants you frequent. And ICE is acting without humanity, blatantly violating constitutional rights. There is no justification for this, especially where asylum seekers are legally permitted to remain in the United States while their claims are pending.
I hope we can agree that what we have witnessed in recent weeks has crossed a line. We saw it in the devastating killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti by Border Patrol agents. You saw it with your own eyes.
It is not too late to say this has gone too far. You are allowed to change your mind. Do not accept this as normal. And if you hear my plea, call Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King and tell them to vote against any more funding for ICE.