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My family Is Terrified So We Are Self Deporting [1]

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Date: 2025-02-05

My wife came to the US from Colombia on a fiance visa in 1995. We married shortly thereafter. To date, the better part of 30 years together. The election of Donald Trump has been a shock to our entire family. We are stunned and alarmed at the rapidity with which the country that I served in the army for and became permanently disabled for as a result, is being systematically dismantled into true Fascism right before our very eyes. That is NOT what I made my sacrifice for!

With each passing day it seems there is a new assault on our way of life, our futures, and our sense of security. Last week we were shocked to see a line of ICE SUVs many blocks long on Colfax avenue, some in front of the Latin market we shop in for groceries nearly every week. Some of them circle the block around the market waiting for customers to enter or leave the building. That stretch of Colfax is well known for being an Hispanic area. We have seen swastikas showing up on historic buildings in our beloved Denver. And of course there is the daily parade of indignities that Trump and Elon Musk are visiting on the very heart of our government institutions, the institutions for which we pay taxes to run and maintain.

My wife, even though a naturalized citizen for decades, lives in daily fear. She rarely leaves the house and when she does she makes sure to carry her passport. But that is still cold comfort as Stephen Miller has already promised to go through every naturalization application going back decades, looking for any "i" not dotted, any "t" not crossed and using that as an excuse to strip naturalized citizenship away. My daughter stands aghast at the thought of having her rights stripped from her, not just abortion (we are in a blue state thankfully), but also less well known issues such as having her property ownership rights stripped away and having to depend on a husband for his discretion on such things (see project 2025) or being forced to stay in an abusive marriage because no-fault divorce if it should come to that, would be eliminated (again project 2025). While still in college, she is of the age when kids her age often meet their future life partners, but she has sworn off any possibility of marriage to avoid having to become a brood mare for the state and a defacto slave to a husband.

For my own part, I'm a gringo who has travelled the world not simply visiting but having lived for extended periods of time in three foreign countries. I've seen how the other half lives. I am nearing retirement after a career in software engineering. It's been a good run, and until Trump was elected, I was planning a reasonably comfortable retirement in Southern Illinois near St Louis. We spent more than a year researching and looking at real estate and were preparing to make the move next year once I hit age 65.

I have family in Chicago and we were looking forward to being just a half day car ride away. But now, we have decided to throw in the towel in America, and make a move out of the country. We are all studying French and plan to relocate to the exurbs of Paris. My uncle retired near Orange and my cousin still lives in Paris, so we are not entirely without connections but it's still a huge change and there will be nothing easy about it.

It's a difficult move, a big move. But I just don't recognize my country any more and neither does my life partner nor our daughter. Our daughter, who is finishing her degree in fine arts is quite excited about the prospect for what should be obvious reasons. What art student doesn't want to study in Paris? I get it, but my wife and I are much more advanced in years. It's very hard to make such an adjustment at our ages. It's rather daunting, but in truth although I was a democratic activist for years, I just no longer have any fight left in me. I really hope I'm wrong, but frankly I don't see any way back from where this country is headed, at least not within the time I have left on this good Earth. Honestly, I'm tired of the fight and I fear it's futile anyway, at least for me. I hate that I have to do this, but I just don't have the energy any more.

I don't want to point fingers, I'm not interested in who could have done more or what we could have done differently, or whether Bernie, or Hillary or Kamala, or some other figure could have done better. To me, at this point, it's like 1938 Germany all over again, concentration camps in Texas and Guantanamo, Jackbooted thugs arresting long term residents on their way to work or as they do their weekly shopping, or invading churches and schools to arrest...8 year old "criminal aliens"? That's not border enforcement, that's out and out fascism, period.

In my opinion our country is lost and there is no saving it, not in my lifetime. I think we have passed the point of no return. So yeah, I'm running. Tired of the fight, I just want to protect my family and pass the torch to the younger generations. I know some of you will call me a quitter. So be it. I can live with that if that's what you want to stamp me with. My work and achievements for democracy, modest as they may have been, have sustained me and kept me sane. But I just have no more to give and I have to think beyond my political interests and focus on my family. We are all frightened and don't have the resources to keep up the fight. It's all on you now my friends, I wish you all well in the continued fight. I'll still post here from time to time, maybe even after we leave. But in truth we genuinely don't feel safe here anymore and we are going to have to move on if we can. Good luck to you all. I will be with you in spirit if not in body.

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