In times like these: I am the grandchild of an "illegal"

Our government is currently wasting more than $5 million per day detaining people with no criminal record.

Jun 14, 2025

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This piece is part of a series addressed to family and friends, looking at current political and social issues from the perspective of my studies and experiences. You can read the last part of this series here.

"I was an 'illegal'!" My grandfather laughed when he said it.

If you've met my grandfather, you'll know that he is a kind, gentle, responsible man who has committed himself to making the world a better place. When he got his first social security check in the mail, he tried to return it. He was happy with his lifestyle and didn't feel he needed the money.

He's also a peaceful and law-abiding citizen. But he did go through a period when he was, as many have put it, in this country "illegally."

My grandfather first came to this country on a student visa. He had dreams of becoming an engineer. He worked hard, got his PhD in civil engineering, met the woman who would become his wife while working on the Glen Canyon Dam, and ended up in Lubbock, Texas, working at Texas Tech University and raising four children.

When he was in his early thirties, he was informed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (what would become ICE) that his visa had expired and that he would have to leave the country. His visa expiration made him an "illegal immigrant." His wife and young children were all US citizens, and he would potentially have to leave them behind.

But by luck, he happened to have a friend with connections, and he was able to use those connections to get his visa extended. His family was safe, secure, and together.

He eventually became a US citizen, but this country was not always kind to him and his family. When he married my white grandmother, their marriage would have been a crime in more than a dozen states. He's shared stories of him and his wife being barred from whites-only businesses.

But he made friends and allies, like the friend who helped him stay in the US. When he bought his first house, a white faculty member insisted on going along with him, warning him that he would likely get an unfair rate as an Indian man. All these years later, the kindness and the friendship is what stands out when my grandfather tells these stories.

He is among a number of family members who share stories of discrimination, of being passed over for opportunities or of having to work harder than their white peers for the same benefits. But they persisted, and I can feel my own resilience within me as their legacy. My grandfather worked hard and did not let prejudice overtake him. He became a world-renowned engineer, was a guest on Bill Nye, is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and has overseen research that saves lives and improves the way we obtain energy.

Kishor Mehta, my grandfather, is a small man with a big impact. And this country is lucky to have him. Just as they are lucky to have had his wife, who chose to love this immigrant man. And just as they are lucky to have my two other grandparents, who were not born US citizens, but who were immigrants in their own way, becoming citizens through the Guam Organic Act of 1950.

JD Vance's entrance into politics

When JD Vance entered the political arena, I was excited. I had read his book Hillbilly Elegy, as well as an essay he had written for The Lamp on the impact of his conversion to Catholicism. I loved both.

He was smart. He was thoughtful. And while he tended towards conservative politics, his essay in The Lamp highlighted the excesses and failures of both the left and the right. He criticized "the left" for deflating any sense of responsibility for marginalized or impoverished persons, giving them a "hopelessness" and a compassion that was "like sympathy for a zoo animal."

On the other hand, he criticized "the right" for its callousness and failure to grapple with the social complexity of those in difficult circumstances:

"I noticed during my research that many of those social problems came from behavior for which social scientists and policy experts had a different vocabulary. On the right, the conversation often turned to ‘culture’ and ‘personal responsibility’—the ways in which individuals or communities held back their own progress. And though it seemed obvious to me that there was something dysfunctional about some of the places in which I’d grown up, the discourse on the right seemed a little heartless. It failed to account for the fact that destructive behaviors were almost always tragedies with terrible consequences. It is one thing to wag your finger at another person for failing to act a certain way, but it is something else to feel the weight of the misery that comes from those actions."

When Vance entered politics, I was really hopeful that this thoughtful intelligent Catholic could bring a more measured, non-partisan, and thoughtful voice to public discourse.

His Vice Presidential campaign felt like a punch in the gut.

A key moment that stands out for me is when Vance publicly spread the false claim that Haitian immigrants were abducting and eating the pets of community members in Springfield, Ohio. He had represented the community as Senator and alleged he was representing his constituents. President Trump amplified that claim during the first presidential debate Then Springfield started receiving bomb threats, and much of the Haitian immigrant community began living in fear. These extremely powerful men had used their national stage to further marginalizes an already extremely marginalized community. Springfield police clarified that the claims were incorrect and that there have been “no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the [Springfield] immigrant community.” Vance then Tweeted, "It's possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false." But in that Tweet he then spread another false claim, that a child was "murdered" by a Haitian immigrant. The father of the child who died called Vance's comments "reprehensible", criticized Vance for using his dead child as a “political tool," and said he wanted an apology. Vance never apologized to his constituent. Vance later said, "If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do."

Ordo amoris

This is a very different man from the Catholic convert that gave me hope for this country's political future. The dismay over his approach to immigrants seems to be shared by the new leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIV. Prior to his election to the papacy, the Twitter account under his name had shared an article criticizing Vance's use of the Christian concept of ordo amoris.

In an interview, Vance had used the concept to critique progressive compassion towards immigrants. Vance said:

“You love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that, you can focus [on] and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that... Just google 'ordo amoris.'"

The article critiquing Vance acknowledged that the practical realities of life involve us prioritizing our care and attention. But it also argued that the Christian concept of love is one of abundance. It reminded us that when Jesus asks, "Who is my neighbor?" the answer is the Samaritan, someone who would have been identified at the time as "a stranger, a foreigner, an enemy." Jesus finds a key source of love here.

Similarly, in 2020, the future pope spoke in a homily for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees in Peru:

"Let us take a moment to reflect on the reality we are living here in Peru today, especially with regard to migration. In recent years, more than 800,000 Venezuelan migrants have arrived here. Today, Peru ranks second only to the United States in the number of asylum requests. In the Lambayeque region alone, it is estimated that there are about 15,000 people — 2,500 migrant families — with whom we now share our land. But Jesus asks more of us. Simply sharing territory is not enough, is it? We must learn, more and more, to welcome others — to receive them with generosity."

As someone who spent years studying Thomas Aquinas and Catholic philosophy and theology, I have to admit that JD Vance is not entirely wrong. Aquinas does state that, even if there is a call to love "all men equally out of charity" in wishing them happiness, there is also an ordo amoris, an "order of charity," where "we ought out of charity to love more intensely those who are more closely united to us." There is a basis of love that we owe all people, but there are special responsibilities of love that we have to those in greater proximity to us.

What JD Vance gets wrong is how we understand this proximity.

Proximity

Diana Daniels is a Springfield, Ohio resident who has been critical of the local handling of issues related to immigration. In the aftermath of Vance's comments and the spotlight shone on her community, Daniels criticized the city commission for shutting down discussions of concerns related to the influx of immigrants. At city commission meetings, Daniels had raised many concerns related to the ways in which migration had changed Springfield.

During that time, Daniels did not articulate the concerns of the Haitian community as her own.

But life changes. Ordo amoris is not a static concept. Our responsibilities, and our sense of "kin" evolves over time. We do not have the same responsibilities towards strangers in other countries as we do towards members of the communities in which we live. But when someone leaves their past community and enters our own, things change. When someone enters our community, Christian teaching calls us to a certain sense of responsibility towards them. And as they spend more time in our community, as we grow in proximity and develop roots as one another's neighbors, our responsibilities evolve. This includes immigrants who come into our communities and becomes members of them. It becomes even more the case over time as they build new lives and families in our communities.

This is natural. In April, Diana Daniels shared that her opinion of her Haitian neighbors changed over time:

"I know a lot of Haitians. I have several that live next to the store where I work. I have had plenty of conversations, conversations that I wish I'd never had, because they're things I didn't want to know, but know now that has changed my perspective, pivoting away from being angry about an illegal being here to realizing that there were two sets of victims. They are the victims just as well as we are."

In her April interview with PBS, Daniels was asked about the diverse population of Springfield, and she shared the community she really doesn't identify with is not the Haitians, but the wealthy members of the local country club:

"Springfield United — Neighbors United, that's your country club crowd. Those are the people that don't have to deal with somebody from another culture on a daily basis. Don't tell me that I have to be their neighbor, because that's what these folks are doing."

Daniels actually identifies the local Haitians as her neighbors. She places the local immigrant Haitian community alongside the suffering citizen community in Springfield. If she were to articulate an ordo amoris, she'd likely place her Haitian community members before the white country club members. It is because of proximity, and because of time. While Vance may classify ordo amoris according to citizenship status, Daniels orders her community based upon those who are nearest to her, both in terms of physical distance and also in terms of shared concerns and realities.

Victims and criminals

In their public rhetoric around deportation, Trump and Vance have argued that they would target “criminals” for deportation. And they have deported many criminals. But that's not all. Deportees have included an 11-year-old US citizen fighting brain cancer. Those detained for deportation include grandmothers with no criminal record, doctoral students whose only offense were opinion pieces in campus papers, hard-working laborers with valid work permits, and immigrants attempting to follow legal processes through court hearings.

President Trump himself, a convicted felon, has more serious criminal convictions than the majority of the immigrants being targeted currently. For those who are Trump supporters and may be skeptical of the fairness of his criminal process, I hope that this fact may lead them to consider the unfairness faced by countless immigrants, who lack the resources to defend themselves that have been available to the billionaire Donald Trump. Many immigrants are so vulnerable that even ICE agents have believed they could get away with sexually abusing them, as one agent recently did with a 17-year-old immigrant girl in Minnesota.

In reality, the data shows that, as a whole, immigration strengthens communities and tends to lessen crime rates. Undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of US citizens. As of June 1, 2025, nearly half of those in detention by ICE have no criminal record. With an estimated average cost of $236.52 per day per person for detention, 51,302 people in detention, and 43.7% of those people without a criminal record… our government is currently wasting more than $5 million per day detaining people with no criminal record.

I look at all the suffering immigrants in this country, and I think of my grandfather. We were lucky. He had overstayed his visa. But he had connections. And he wasn't living under the Trump presidency. If he had that status today, we would fear daily that he could be arrested, sent into custody and imprisoned in another state where we may not be able to find out his whereabouts for days or even weeks. We would have to pull together money for a lawyer and find the strength to support each other. I would have to support my family in distress while trying to manage my own misery in that situation, while also knowing members of my community would look at him callously and say that he’s getting what he deserves. I feel fury when I see what vulnerable immigrants are going through today, because I know my family is avoiding their misery simply because of luck, because of timing.

I look into history, and I have to wonder where I can stand. What would I have done in other moments like this one? Anne Frank wrote on this day, her birthday on June 13, in 1943:

"Terrible things are happening outside... poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared."

Anne Frank could have been writing of the United States in 2025. What I do today is what I would have done if I were living in her time. I choose not to be silent. I try to take inspiration from her calling, and I write.

In his vision of ordo amoris, Vance does not seem to really be looking at proximity. Rather, he divides existing communities by legal status. When it comes to my grandfather, my ordo amoris has nothing to do with legal status. It has everything to do with the fact that he is my grandfather. When I see people arguing that all of these people should be deported, I hear them talking about my grandfather where he once was. He had no more a right to be in this country than many who are being targeted today. I have to ask myself, "If he were in that situation, who would have stood up for him, who would have spoken out for him? And who would have callously turned away? Who would have placed my grandfather in their ordo amoris? Would I wish that more had?"

I look into so many of these immigrants, and I see his face. I see my future. I am writing this because of the life my grandparents worked to create for me, and because of the sheer luck that has secured it. I try to find a way to look into them and place them within my own ordo amoris.

I understand why so many Americans don't identify with the plight of immigrants and refugees today. Often, these immigrants and refugees don't look like them. But they look like me, like my grandfather, like many of my friends. I would encourage you to consider our faces when you see them.

And then there are immigrants, like many from the Philippines, who had to wait a decade or more in order to "legally" immigrate to this country. For them, the difficult process of immigration that they chose to follow can breed a resentment towards those who snuck across the border in a matter of days or weeks. I suppose all I can say to them is: consider yourself lucky if you were able to wait that decade in safety, with food and shelter and hope for a new life. Many "sneaking" across the border don't have these.

Your Huddled Masses

In 1865, the United States was nearing its centennial of independence. The French historian and abolitionist Edouard de Laboulaye proposed a statue as a gift to the country, celebrating the centennial, the perseverance of American democracy, and the abolition of slavery in the US. The statue would eventually become the Statue of Liberty.

To raise money for the statue's pedestal, American poet Emma Lazarus wrote a poem that would be eventually titled "The New Colossus" and commemorated on a plaque in the pedestal. The Statue of Liberty became an icon of freedom, and a symbol of welcome to immigrants arriving to the harbor where she could be seen. The plaque within her includes the lines from "The New Colossus":

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

This image of American greatness is what I carry with me as I write. At the turn of the century and the ending of our great national shame, the institution of slavery, what epitomized American freedom and greatness was the ways in which we differed from the greatness prioritized by other nations.

We were "not like the brazen giant of Greek fame" that celebrated "conquering." Rather, we were intended to be a light to the nations, "a mighty woman with a torch" who receives "exiles" with a glowing "world-wide welcome." We saw the glory that other countries would bestow upon themselves "with storied pomp," and we told them that they could keep this. Rather than that pomp and their great lands we would take "your tired, your poor," and this would be our greatness. As a country, "I lift my lamp beside the golden door." The Statue of Liberty held her great lamp beside the golden door, the harbor receiving those exiles, those tired, those poor.

Our country's leaders want to extinguish that lamp, to bolt the door shut. Protests are happening in Los Angeles because we refuse to let them.

Image of the words of the New Colossus inscribed on a bronze plaque.

Chris Damian writes

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