Tears and Farewells at CreArte Latino

 Elvira Sánchez-Blake

Last Thursday was a night of tears and farewells.

Carolina and Elías are leaving CreArte and the country. Not because they wanted or chosen to do so, but because of a cruel repressive system that rewards criminals and punishes the innocent.

In the same week, Elías lost his father and was deported to his native Argentina. He lost not only his freedom and his rights, but also a loved one to whom he was denied to say goodbye. He lost his construction business, his livelihood, his assets in this country, and his community work through CreArte Latino, an organization of which he was a key and irreplaceable member.

Elías was detained on June 1st, when he and his wife, Carolina, went to a USCIS appointment to complete the requirements and paperwork for his residency. They were accompanied by their immigration attorney, who guided them through the process. No one imagined that, at the end of the interview, ICE agents would be waiting to arrest him and take him to an immigration detention center.

The pretext for his arrest was a technicality: he had failed to change his address when he moved from New Jersey to Florida in 2011. As a result, he never received a summons to appear before the immigration authorities.

Carolina, his wife and life partner, has carried the full weight of this injustice. Just two weeks earlier, they had celebrated the news of a long-awaited desired pregnancy. Now she was left to face the legal process alone, take charge of their construction company, to care for Elías’s father during his final days, and, ultimately, bid farewell to the organization to which she had devoted her life and her effort creating a model Latino cultural center in the state of Florida.

The case of Elías and Carolina is not an isolated one. Thousands of Latinos are being targeted and detained despite having committed no crime, suffering mistreatment in detention centers, and ultimately being deported without consideration or compassion.

No mercy.

That was the conclusion reached by the attorneys handling the case. Better to accept deportation than remain trapped in a limbo, thus forgoing fruitless appeals while the bodies and spirits are slowly worn away in what amounts to a living hell.

“But this is unbelievable!” some naïve observers say. “How is this possible?” they ask, believing the political campaign that seeks to justify the horror.  "But if they are only deporting Criminals!" 

None of this comes as a surprise.

From the moment he launched his campaign, the current president announced and promised a fierce crackdown on immigrants, whom he has relentlessly portrayed as “criminals” meriting treatment as if they were lesser human beings.

In April, a 70 billion dollar appropriation made ICE the best funded agency in the country. The ICE crusade—a racist and xenophobic campaign marked by deeply dehumanizing practices reminiscent of the Gestapo—is being carried out relentlessly and without restraint.

July of this year marked the highest number of immigration arrests and deportations in U.S. history. The termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), restrictions on asylum proceedings and DACA, and the expansion of ICE’s authority to pursue and detain people who fit the Latino profile, dark-skinned folks with a Spanish accent, are increasing detentions and fear. 

Last Thursday was an evening of tears, embraces, and farewells at CreArte.

Like an echo of the play we presented last November, Voices of Immigration, Carolina moved us with her personal, genuine, heartfelt testimony on the very stage where we have presented the stories of immigrants told through other voices. This time, however, the testimony was not a story being performed. It was real.

She stood before us in her own voice, speaking from her own experience, carrying her own pain.

And we, the audience, were moved to the depths of our souls. Her story touched the very core of what binds us together: love, family, and human dignity.

Our tears of pain brought us together. They became a collective catharsis.

We cried for Carolina and Elías, for their family, and for so many others enduring similar circumstances. We cried out of helplessness and rage, but also out of solidarity.

Because their pain is our pain.

It is the pain of family, of friends, and of community. It is the grief we carry—with anger and disillusionment—in the face of our own powerlessness.

We, the members of CreArte, embraced each other and cried together.

And in those tears, there was also a form of resistance—a renewed pledge to stand together for justice.