Run, Kofi Ghana run, we are all Trumped in Chicago

First, the idea of a second Trump presidency was a scare we smelled miles away.
Then it drew closer when the polls put him ahead of Kamala Harris, despite the Democrat holding strong in the debates and ticking all the right conventional boxes.
The scare hit our doorsteps when the results of the elections mostly showed red.
Soon, the scare was a frightening reality on our menu, becoming a staple we must force down our throats.
Today, everyday in America is like a blank canvas on which Mr. Trump would write another scary edit to scare our souls to early damnation.

Dictator for Day 1 only
By now, every ten-year old knows what an Executive Order means, especially in a Trump presidency.
Since January 20 when he assumed office as the 47th President of the United States of America, Donald Trump has signed a flurry of Executive Orders to walk back many policies of the Joe Biden administration, and begin an empathic MAGA (Make America Great Again) makeover.
The Orders target a crackdown on immigration, end to birthright citizenship, and cut off transgender rights.
Heavy tariffs will hit products coming from elsewhere to the US.
On his first day alone, the President signed 50 Executive actions, 26 of which are Executive Orders.
In Trump’s first term in 2017, he signed 14 of these Orders in his first week in office. Last year, Trump promised he would not be a dictator “except for day 1” of his presidency. He just did.
And despite legal challenges already streaming through, the future of America, especially for immigrants, will never be the same. In one day, 530 illegals were taken in. The mayor of Chicago, a blackman, is defenceless.
Some 8 million illegal immigrants poured into America in the last four years, and Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, intends to get them.

Living on ICE
For many Ghanaians in the USA, undocumented or citizen, the Order to pull America from the WHO may be a threat we can think about later, but the present order for ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to stop and search ‘aliens’ in schools, churches and homes, is a scare that hits home, whether you live in Kentucky or Kumasi.
For Ghanaians and other Africans, our bodies may be walking about in Texas but our souls live beyond the seas in Takoradi and Teshie. Our families in Ghana feel the pain more when our host countries come after us.
They have sleepless nights when their children face mistreatment or deportation.
When you live abroad illegally or undocumented, the twin words of immigration and deportation carry the same weight of fear and disappointment, as the sight of menstrual blood to a childless African wife expecting a pregnancy.
You panic when you see the police. You drive carefully and observe all speed limits.
You do not frequent wild parties and public places where a commotion could invite the police your way.
A knock on your door could be anything, especially if you are not expecting anybody to visit.
You are advised not to open the door. ICE is targeting African grocery stores and churches. The caution is to stay in and pray.

When you work with another person’s documents, you avoid the piercing gaze of supervisors and never visit the HR department. The original owner of your work permit becomes your God, and you pray that they never die. You must laugh at their joke, even if it is not funny.
If you also use their bank details, then you are like the dumb husband whose wedding was sponsored by his mother-in-law; you do not speak much at dinner and are quick to clear the plates.
The ‘undocumented life’ is punctuated by fear and uncertainty in a system that promises big Dreams but denies you good sleep, even after acquiring your Green card or citizenship.

Trump’s third term
Most undocumented Ghanaians entered the States legally on various visa classes.
However, they become illegal when the visas expire.
You are deemed to have entered the US illegally if you crossed the border in an unapproved fashion, a phenomenon mostly associated with Mexicans and immigrants from other countries who use that route to the States.
When your document expires, the most popular route Ghanaians use to regularise their immigration status is “awaree”, or in the case of students, pick up more courses to extend their study permit.
While an immigrant may continue as a career student and eventually hit a cul-de-sac, the ‘awaree’ candidate may be asked to leave the country when it fails.
Twenty years later, the illegal immigrant lives like an unwanted pregnancy that must also not be aborted.
They may own a home in America but cannot travel home to bury their parents when they die.
Within the period, they would have paid for wives and siblings to emigrate to the States, and may have worked towards the regularization of their documents. But they may never get their own Green cards.
Deportation is the Golgotha of the undocumented immigrant.
The thought of being deported to your home country is so scary it has earned a popular acronym in immigration lingo (FOD–Fear of Deportation).
In fact, FOD is an amalgamation of all fears, including thanatophobia–the fear of death.
Sometimes, desperate deportees may wish themselves dead in America than to go back to their home countries to live.
The sky has fallen on illegal immigrants and only one man can save us.
Meanwhile, some Americans are already proposing a constitutional amendment to allow Donald Trump to serve a third term, to “sustain the bold leadership our nation so desperately needs,” Andy Ogles, Tennessee Republican, has urged. Well, it seems we are all Trumped. Forever. Unless Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde keeps praying.

Tissues of the Issues
Kwasi Tawiah-Benjamin

bigfrontiers@gmail.com