10 | SEPTEMBER 12 • 2019
Views
A Soviet Jew Refl
ects
on Immigration
Deportations
essay
A
s an immigrant to the
U.S. myself, the recent
rise in deportation of
immigrants, whatever their
legal status, is personal for
me. My family came here in
1990, when
I was only
9 years old.
However, the
U.S. did not
welcome us in
easily, naturally,
just out of the
goodness of its
heart, no matter what is writ-
ten on the Statue of Liberty.
The immigration doors
opened because of decades
of political struggle by
Refuseniks in the Soviet
Union and the hard work of
organizing here in the U.S.,
first by college students and
eventually by the full Jewish
community. Thousands of
people called their represen-
tatives, and 250,000 took
to the streets in 1987 in
Washington, to make my
family’
s move here possible.
Surely, many of you read-
ing the Jewish News contrib-
uted to that decades-long
effort in one way or another.
You made it legal. Thank
you for that. You created
incredible infrastructure in
the U.S. to support us once
we arrived. I can’
t thank you
enough for that!
But sadly, the legality, or
lack thereof, does not change
the desperate circumstances
that often lead people to
immigrate or seek asylum.
I’
m not a politician, so I
will not pretend to have an
answer for how we integrate
the needs of security and
budget on one hand, and
the ethical and international
imperative to help the needy
and treat every person once
they’
ve entered our country
with basic dignity on the
other.
However, as a rabbi, I
know something about dif-
ficult decisions, constructive
conflict or lack thereof. I
know something about the
dehumanizing way in which
we talk to each other and
about each other in the U.S.
right now. I also know that
some choices are clear-cut
wrongs.
The deportation of Jimmy
Aldaoud, a 41-year old
Chaldean man born in a ref-
ugee camp in Athens on the
way from Iraq to the U.S.,
was a clear wrong. While the
rest of his family became U.S.
citizens, Jimmy’
s schizophre-
nia made it too difficult for
him to take the test. So, we
deported him, a man who
had never actually stepped
foot in Iraq, didn’
t speak the
language, struggling with
schizophrenia and diabetes.
He died on Aug. 6. This
story, in all its insanity, also
hits close to home because
my sister-in-law is Chaldean,
so while I don’
t know
Jimmy’
s family, I grieve with
them as if they’
re part of my
own.
The ridiculousness of our
immigration system, which
doesn’
t provide sufficient
exceptions for people with
mental health challenges, is
also beyond words. I had an
aunt with Down’
s syndrome
who, at her citizenship
interview, was asked, “Would
Rabbi Moshe
Givental
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