You cannot possibly think this is OK.
For nearly 20 years, a kind man and his wife, originally from Mexico, have cared for our pool here in Los Angeles. I won’t name them, for their protection. But they’re more than service providers, they’ve become part of our lives. They play with our dogs. We talk about our families. They show up every Wednesday like clockwork, reliable, humble, warm.
I’m well aware how fortunate I am to even have a pool. I’m not tone-deaf to my own privilege. And I don’t say this to separate myself, I say it because it matters. It matters who gets to live in fear in this country and who doesn’t. It matters who gets to be seen as a person, and who gets reduced to a status.
Last week, I asked them, “Are you doing OK?”
They smiled and said yes.
But I asked again. “Really, are you OK with everything ICE is doing to your community?”
And for the first time in almost 20 years, they opened up.
They are both documented. They pay taxes. They work hard. They play by the rules. And still, they are terrified.
They only leave home for work. They shop at night. Their teenage daughter is afraid to go to school because even U.S. citizens are being detained, questioned, taken. ICE is not protecting us, it’s terrorizing families like theirs.
As her husband spoke, his wife began to cry.
She told me something I’ll never forget:
“I was so proud to be an American. But for the first time, I’m ashamed of what that means.”
That shame does not belong to her. It belongs to all of us who claim to care, but stay silent. It belongs to a system that turns dreamers into targets. It belongs to an America that has forgotten its own story.
I am the grandson of an immigrant. Second generation. My grandfather came here with nothing, well $30 and a suitcase to be fair. My father did better than his father. And through their hard work, through the doors they forced open, I’ve been able to do better still. My children, the young men that my wife and I raised will go even further.
That’s the American dream.
That’s the promise of this country.
That’s what makes us great.
And unless you’re a Native American, it all starts with immigrants...that’s the origin story of us all!
So how dare we slam the door shut behind us?
The people being indiscriminately hunted down by ICE are by and large not criminals. They are caretakers, field hands, restaurant staff, delivery drivers, housekeepers. They do the jobs most Americans won’t. They work quietly, tirelessly. They pay into a system that sees them only when it wants to remove them. I drive past farmland in Ventura County that’s sitting empty—crops rotting, because the hands that once picked them are either gone or in hiding.
What’s happening now isn’t enforcement. It’s state-sponsored cruelty brought to us by an inhuman felon in chief.
If you still believe this is about border security or violent offenders, you are lying to yourself. This is about fear. This is about power. This is about dehumanization.
And we know where that road leads.
We need immigration reform. We need justice. But what we are witnessing, no-knock raids, indiscriminate detentions, families torn apart and ‘disappeared” into the dead of night is not justice. It’s vengeance. It’s cowardice. And it’s not who we’re supposed to be.
There has to be a line in the sand. This is mine. I won’t rely on my privilege, I will not look away, I won’t shut up and I won’t submit.
When a woman who still believes in this country cries in your backyard and says, “I’m ashamed to be an American,” something is deeply, irreparably broken. That pain is real. That shame is earned by us.
So speak. Even if it’s uncomfortable...especially if it’s uncomfortable.
Call your representatives today. Show up. Stop pretending this isn’t happening. Because if we normalize this violence against people who believe in our promise, who still believe even as they hide from their own government, then we don’t deserve the flag we wrap ourselves in.
The America I was raised to believe in doesn’t do this. If it does now, then we owe it to the people who still believe, to rebuild something better. Something worthy of them and of us.
