This stood out to me because I have the privilege of working with asylum seekers in the American limbo of a broken immigration system. To a person (speaking only to my personal direct experience) they are fastidiously hard working, law abiding, consistent, persistent, thrifty, generous, respectful. It is immensely interesting to me the broad, generalized categorical attacks that some Americans have — even though we are all benefiting from the dish washing, manual labor, construction, infrastructure, cleaning and maintenance and so forth in jobs performed that otherwise go undone. When someone attacks immigrants broadly I ask if they can name names more than some rare exception — because I can list dozens of people we can go see who are model citizens. Could it be that we fear immigrants because they will “do” the work we give lip service to?

For those immigrants condemned for being here “illegally” I ask this of the accuser: “Have you ever tried to work through the USA immigration process?” I have “showed up” repeatedly, persistently, hardworking long term — years and thousands of dollars later I know the seemingly endless gaps, departments, dead ends, changing rules, go back to zero, lack of documentation or consistent processes that is our broken immigration system.