Something that just happened to me
Here is a column in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press that quotes the opinion I gave on a previous column written by Ruben Rosario:
To continue with my unpopular viewpoint (although being unpopular is not my goal) I add these two columns (the last two of four on this family) for thought. It seems that, despite much argument, frustration, debate from others of far different perspectives on this and many issues I feel strongly about, I simply MUST follow that “higher authority” that Ruben Rosario answers to. I do so with absolute resolve, humility, & reverence for our Creator, the Higher Power, my God, my Greatest Love – who also is the Creator of all those “others” out there whom we so readily push aside. GOD HELP US ALL!!!
I was honoured that Mr Rosario would quote me on this most important matter… many blessings… aisha
First, here is the full response I wrote to Ruben Rosario after he asked permission to quote me (from my initial response to his 28 January 2007 column below) for this follow up / reader response piece he wrote (also below 4 January 2007) on the same matter:
I read articles like yours & I see what is happening AGAIN in our great nation & I weep for those most in need as well as for the mass ignorance of us all. They say that if you don’t know your history you are doomed to repeat it – this is case in point. A little less than 100 years ago in this country we faced very similar attacks towards “those immigrants”. Anyone other than white Protestant Christians were thought to be an enemy to the American way. The tone & rhetoric in the political arena at the time was frighteningly similar to that of today. It isn’t any great mystery to those who care to pay attention that when there are troubled times economically & otherwise in our country that we seek a scapegoat – someone who those of all economic strata will quickly embrace as the cause of much of our ill. Clearly that group ends up being those with little or no resource or power within our society – “The Illegal Immigrant”! If you went back & studied what was said & done to reduce immigration then & compared it to now – you’d be hard-pressed to find much of a difference. Interestingly enough, the major driving force behind the movement nearly 100 years ago was the Ku Klux Klan!
How many times & to how many atrocities will we continue to say “Never Again” or “Never Forget” before we truly change our ways & quit being willing to be led by some puppetmaster somewhere? I love the saying “If you are not outraged – you aren’t paying attention”. When I read about a family in a situation like this one I shutter. How can we consider ourselves a righteous Christian society & allow these sorts of things to be done to the most vulnerable among us? What good are laws without justice in support of them? Furthermore, what good is it to consider ourselves Christians without Christlike love, empathy, & compassion? Does God’s love & mercy end at our borders & with US citizenship?
Forgive any perceived tone of cynicism. I mean no disrespect. I am grateful for having been born within the borders of this great nation – but recall the fear of my own grandfather, a Russian immigrant who came here back just after the turn of the 20th century & died with the fear that someone would find out he wasn’t a citizen & would deport him & his family back to the place he had escaped.
I sometimes fear that the hottest places in hell will be reserved for many of us right here in the United States who dare think ourselves to be among the most righteous in the world. In this era of suppression of any dissenting thought or speech I humbly submitted this to you not as someone who harbors hatred or ill-will towards any person or government – only the contrary is true – in fact that would be diametrically opposed to all that I am & all that I stand for. It is with love & desire for the well-being of ALL of God’s children everywhere that I speak out so strongly for us to wake up, think for ourselves, & do something positive to stop this tide of hateful, intolerant action against those who need us the most.
To the Lamah family & so many others with similar stories, I pray for you & keep you in my thoughts always. A few years ago I changed my name in the desire that it would better represent the life I wish to lead. It’s meaning is “A rare life/woman of high purpose”. It is with you in heart & mind that I commit myself to work towards the greater good of all peoples everywhere.
Peace & Blessings…Posted on Sun, Jan. 28, 2007
A family apart, a child in pain. For what?
Gotcha: One more illegal booted out. Now her ailing son, crippled by botched surgeries overseas, is back for expensive treatment on taxpayers’ dime. None of it had to happen.
RUBÉN ROSARIO
The picture of Cece, Cynthia, and Daniel Lamah, which sits on Daniel’s television, was taken on July 3, 2005.
JEAN PIERI, Pioneer Press
The picture of Cece, Cynthia, and Daniel Lamah, which sits on Daniel’s television, was taken on July 3, 2005.
- Nov. 7, 2005: Deportation case is no model of justice served
The federal judge predicted this would happen. So did the doctor and nurse who have treated the little boy since birth.
But their warnings meant nothing. A legal system that proved stubbornly deaf to common sense brushed aside their concerns. All this could have been avoided.
Instead, 16 months after the federal government deported his mother, 3-year-old Cece Lamah finds himself facing months of difficult medical care — mostly on our dime.
Cece, hospitalized in Minneapolis, endures daily pain. One recent afternoon, he asked his dad to remove a needle and tube from his arm because they hurt so much.
Two years ago, U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank, Dr. Stephen Nelson and nurse Jane Hennessy of Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis warned in court filings that deporting the boy’s mother, Cynthia Lamah, would have a devastating domino effect.
Cece, a U.S. citizen, has sickle cell anemia, a condition that requires constant care and monitoring. His mother was his primary caretaker.
At the time, the boy’s father, Daniel Lamah, a native of the Congo granted political asylum in the United States in 1999, worked as a tile setter and had health insurance benefits.
But Cynthia Lamah came here illegally from Germany with a falsified passport. She did so after her requests for a visiting visa and political asylum were denied. Federal officials ordered her deported.
“This could put Daniel’s work and the family’s financial situation in jeopardy,’’ Nelson and Hennessy wrote in a July 6, 2005, letter filed in court and sent to officials at the Homeland Security Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “Sending Cece, a United States citizen, to Cameroon, with his mother would also put him at high risk.’‘
Frank, who reviewed a last-minute request for a reprieve, concluded he had no legal standing to block a Justice Department immigration judge’s deportation order. He nevertheless criticized the move on practical and moral grounds.
“This is a sad day for those who believe that when a judge adheres even-handedly to his or her oath of office, justice will prevail and the public interest will be served,’’ Frank wrote. “To the extent that a civilized and democratic society is judged by the way in which it treats and protects its most vulnerable members, it has failed today.”
Here’s what has transpired since my 2005 column on the family’s plight.
Cynthia, who suffered a miscarriage while detained at the Ramsey County jail in July 2005, was deported two months later to Cameroon. She now lives with one of her husband’s sisters in nearby Guinea.
In December 2005, Daniel Lamah was laid off by his longtime employer, a Twin Cities construction company.
“They told me it was because of a work slowdown,’’ Daniel Lamah, 41, said last week inside the hospital room that has turned into his makeshift home for the past two weeks. “I suspected, because some friends still work there, that it might have had to do because I had to take time out three times to find day care or take my child to the hospital.’‘
Unemployed, with no family here and unable to find an adequate sitter to tend to his son’s needs, Lamah made a choice in February 2006 that he dreaded: taking his son to Africa to stay with his mom.
“It was a risk, because I knew that the doctors there had little knowledge about (sickle cell anemia),’’ he said. “We took extra medication, antibiotics, and I felt I could come back and find a job and bring him back.’‘
He returned to the Twin Cities in May. He has not found work. Meanwhile, his son underwent what Nelson describes as questionable and damaging surgeries to alleviate bone swelling in his body.
“Had that happened here, it would be malpractice, and I would lose my license,’’ Nelson said, adding that the life expectancy of a child with sickle cell anemia in West Africa is less than five years, as opposed to 50 in the United States.
The surgeries apparently led to bacterial infections that have significantly attacked the boy’s bone structure, particularly his upper arm and left leg.
Daniel Lamah flew to Guinea on Dec. 23 to bring his son back here. A family physician took one look at the kid and ordered him sent to Children’s.
“I was horrified when I saw him,’’ Nelson said, his anger palpable. “His left femur is essentially destroyed. He hasn’t walked in about a year. He will need months of IV antibiotics and a blood transfusion every three to four weeks.
“Compared to just taking care of a child with sickle cell anemia, the medical expenses now for him, that the taxpayers are going to pay, is just astronomical. And this boy has suffered both physical and emotional trauma.’‘
But hey, we followed the law, didn’t we? We got rid of another illegal alien.
Though disappointed at how his life is going, Daniel Lamah still clings to the concept of the American dream.
“I’m still dreaming,’’ he says. “I still love and am grateful for this country.’‘
The dream is what he had before this entire nightmare — a steady income, a home in Brooklyn Center bought before thoughts of bearing or raising children or having his wife come here from Germany. Now he’s in danger of losing the home as well.
Unlike his countryman Dikembe Mutombo, the Houston Rockets center deservedly singled out for praise last week by President Bush during his State of the Union speech, Daniel Lamah is not 7-foot-2 and can’t dunk a basketball.
If he could, the government would have found some way to stretch or break the rules and keep Cynthia Lamah here, raising her kid. You can bank on that.
Instead, Daniel Lamah is still waiting for the green card he applied for more than six years ago. He has no money to hire a lawyer to even inquire about it.
Michele Garnett McKenzie, director of Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights’ refugee and immigrant program, is looking into the Lamahs’ situation. She said Daniel Lamah cannot apply to get his wife back here until he receives his green card and becomes a naturalized U.S. citizen.
Even so, she said, the fact that Cynthia Lamah was deported means she must wait at least 10 years before she can be allowed to reunite here with her husband.
“He has been through a lot,” said McKenzie, who knows of Daniel Lamah’s experiences in his native land. “He was a (Congolese) government worker who was jailed, placed in solitary confinement and forced to drink his own urine because he refused to shoot at innocent civilians.”
Daniel Lamah doesn’t want handouts. He wants a job in order to take care of himself and his son. On this morning, however, his focus rests squarely on Cece, crying from hunger because he is scheduled for surgery to have an IV tube placed in his chest.
A nurse walks into the room and asks Daniel Lamah whether he would prefer to have his son wheeled out on a cart.
“No,’’ he responds as he gently drapes Cece over his right shoulder.
“I’ll carry him there. It’s no problem.’‘
Rubén Rosario can be reached at rrosario@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5454.
Online: Read a previous Rubén Rosario column about the Cynthia Lamah case at www.twincities.com. Cece Lamah, 3, suffers from sickle cell anemia and destructive surgeries performed abroad. His father, Daniel Lamah, holds his son and shows the signs of Cece’s operation Wednesday morning at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis. Daniel Lamah believes the amount of time he spends caring for his son led to his layoff from a longtime job at a Twin Cities construction company.
Cynthia Lamah was deported in 2005, separating her from her husband, Daniel, and her son, Cece. Cynthia was Cece’s primary caretaker.
Posted on Sun, Feb. 04, 2007
Boy’s fate is lesson in tolerance
RUBÉN ROSARIO
You learn a lot about human nature during 27 years in journalism. You learn up close and personal about the good, the bad, the ugly and the in-betweens.
The reaction to my column last Sunday on the plight of 3-year-old Cece Lamah and his parents teaches you about the full range.
“You are a piece of living (crap),’’ was the message one unidentified man left on my voicemail Wednesday.
“Enough is enough. All immigrants need to go back home!’’ added another caller, this time a very upset woman.
She was among a handful of callers or e-mail writers who expressed outrage but somehow forgot or declined to attach a name to their views.
You also learn there are folks who strongly disagree with your views, but are respectful and civil enough to offer counterarguments.
And you also learn that there are many people who feel and think exactly like you do. That is welcome and refreshing but also scary sometimes, depending on the issue.
In the end, you learn that it’s all good, as long as you are resolute and steadfast in your conviction about what is truly right and just.
Here’s a quick recap of this kid’s situation: Cece is the U.S.-born son of Daniel Lamah, 41, a Congo native and torture survivor who was granted political asylum in the United States in 1999.
His wife, Cynthia, was five months pregnant with Cece when she illegally entered the U.S. in 2003 from Germany with a falsified passport. It seems her attempts to come here legally, through a visiting visa and a request for political asylum, were rejected.
She, by most accounts a decent woman without any criminal record, did indeed break the law to be with her husband. I’ll let a higher being ultimately judge the morals of her action.
Pregnant again, she was jailed July 5, 2005, and miscarried a 4½-month-old fetus two weeks later inside a Ramsey County cell. She was deported in September 2005.
A federal judge and physicians who treated Cece, who suffers from sickle cell anemia, predicted the deportation of the boy’s mother — his primary caretaker — would trigger a devastating domino effect that would significantly endanger the child’s health.
It has. The boy’s father, struggling to provide day care and taking his kid to the doctors, was laid off after six years of steady employment with an Eagan-based construction company.
As a result, Daniel Lamah made the heart-wrenching decision to send his son to Guinea to stay with Cynthia while he returned here to find another steady job. He’s still looking.
Meanwhile, his son’s condition worsened, prompting doctors in Guinea to perform what physicians here describe as unnecessary and damaging surgeries to alleviate bone swelling.
The bottom line is that this kid, legally as American as apple pie and pizza are cultural icons, is now undergoing critical and costly medical care, mostly on our dime. As I argued in the column, had his father been a gifted athlete who could dunk a basketball, the government would have found a way to keep the mom here raising this boy.
The overwhelming majority of readers agreed.
“I am grateful for having been born within the borders of this great nation,’’ wrote Aisha Nadra, of Minneapolis. “But (I) recall the fear of my own grandfather, a Russian immigrant who came here just after the turn of the 20th century and died with the fear that someone would find out he wasn’t a citizen and would deport him and his family back to the place he had escaped.”
She went on:
“I sometimes fear that the hottest places in hell will be reserved for many of us right here in the United States who dare think ourselves to be among the most righteous in the world. It is with love and desire for the well-being of all of God’s children everywhere that I speak out so strongly for us to wake up, think for ourselves, and do something positive to stop this tide of hateful, intolerant action against those who need us the most.’‘
Like Nadra, many others throughout the Twin Cities saw Cece as our child rather than some automatic ticket to entry or U.S. citizenship, which has not been the case for more than two decades now.
Yet, there are folks like Peter Ehret from Houston.
“We are a sovereign nation entitled to a border,’’ he wrote. “She violated our country’s immigration law and committed crimes related to her violation of our immigration law. Thousands of parents are separated from their children by the criminal justice system.
“Those are truly heart-wrenching cases, but granting immunity from prosecution because you have some human shield at your disposal (kid) doesn’t work,’’ Ehret added. “Tell the entire world, if you come here and don’t belong here, we’ll send you home. Your article printed in her home country would be a much greater public service.”
Ehret makes a valid legal point. Another caller strongly suggested we change the law so that children born here from undocumented immigrants do not become U.S. citizens.
I agree, as long as we make this proposed law retroactive by at least 500 years so that everyone other than American Indians or their descendants have to pack their bags and go back to the country of their ancestors.
Cece, whether we like the law or not, is an American. By being American, our government should have placed his best interests as a top priority. Instead, we followed the law and made things worse for the family and all of us.
By law, Cece likely will be a teenager, if he lives that long, before his mother is legally able to apply to come here. There is something inherently un-American about that. And I make no apologies at all for feeling that way. I answer to a higher authority on this.
Rubén Rosario can be reached at rrosario@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5454.
Here are the first two columns on this topic:
Article 2 of 3; 1400 words
TALES OF PEOPLE WITH REAL WOES STRUCK A CHORD
Source: RUBEN ROSARIO
Since 1997, this newspaper has allowed me to share extraordinary stories about ordinary folks through this column. This year, the stories that resonated most with readers cut across all walks of life and experiences.Here are some of the tales that generated the most reader feedback. Amy Vitelli: A masked intruder raped the West St. Paul mother inside her home 18 months ago. The attack took place while her then 4-year-old son, certain something bad was happening to the most important person
Published on January 2, 2006, Page B1, St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
Article 3 of 3; 1158 words
DEPORTATION CASE IS NO MODEL OF JUSTICE SERVED
Source: RUBEN ROSARIO
To those who complain that we aren’t deporting enough illegal aliens, or that we are showing way too much mercy or compassion, I offer Exhibit A: Cynthia Lamah.To those who complain that we have too many activist federal judges who want to circumvent the executive and legislative branches of government, I offer Exhibit B: U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank. Watch your step down below. There’s slippery sarcasm at the very bottom.Lamah unquestionably broke federal
Published on November 7, 2005, Page B1, St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
