I have a good friend, Said, who was born in Algeria. During the violent civil war that plagued the country beginning in 1991, my friend fled the country for Europe. He ended up in Brussels, Belgium, which he has made his home for the past 16 years. Said was a young man when he left Algeria; now, in his late thirties, he desires what we all want for ourselves: a family, a steady job, a secure place to live, and so on. He called me today and told me that he is atop a large crane in Brussels with two friends, threatening to kill himself and standing off with police -- because after sixteen years of non-stop appeals, he has been denied legal permanent residency in Belgium once again.
I'm writing this diary because I love my friend, and his story breaks my heart. Yes, he bears some responsibility for his situation, as he failed to secure the proper immigration documents before moving to Europe sixteen years ago. Yes, threatening to kill oneself in such a manner is not at all productive. Yes, countries cannot just hand out permanent residency cards like candy to anyone who happened to enter the country illegally. But, what is my friend supposed to do? Is supposed to return home to a town that doesn't exist as he knew it, when his family and friends there have been killed or displaced? Is he supposed to leave his girlfriend (he can't marry her legally) of many years, and the country which has become his home, despite the intense difficulty of surviving there without the appropriate papers?
I understand his frustration, I feel it too; and I feel angry and exasperated for all people in his situation. How can there be people in this world that can't legally live where they live? I honestly don't have the energy right now to come up with a proposal that would be a solvent solution to this problem; I'm too upset. But I wanted to share my friend's story because . . . because it's happening. And because I'm witnessing it, and I want others to know about it and see it and understand what my friend is going through. I know that people have similar experiences here in the United States, but none has touched my personal life like this one. Said is the kind of person who would fit in this community -- he's a poet and a peacenik and an earth-lover and a romantic. He's friendly and generous and cool. He introduced me to my husband, and he would ghost-write my husband's love letters to me before my beloved could speak English well enough to do it for himself. When the ATM at the train station in Brussels was busted so I couldn't get any cash for the night train I was taking to Munich, he reached into his pocket and didn't offer me a ten or a twenty, but put took out every cent in his pocket and put it in my hand. He wouldn't take any of it back. And I barely knew him at the time.
I feel that people, regardless of who they are or where they were born, should have the right to leave decent lives like human beings, period. And they should not be punished decades after the fact for seeking better lives in countries that would seem to provide shelter from violence and strife.
Please keep my friend in your thoughts / prayers today. And please let's work on improving the situation for "illegal aliens" in the U.S. and around the world.