A Growing Sisterhood

Days to departure for São Paulo: 7

Days to departure for Vancouver: 10

Visa status: "maybe next week but no promises..."

But enough about Canada for today.

On her Facebook account, The Deportee's Wife posted the blog of a new exile (The Real Housewife of Ciudad Juárez) that gives the reader a stunningly honest and raw step-by-step look at the completely life-altering journey across the border (mine involved lots of airplane barf bags, if you remember).

With estimates approaching 400,000 deportations this year (and many others chosing to preempt what feels inevitable) exiles are a growing sisterhood (with a handful of brothers!). And the exodus will continue until Americans decide that choosing between love and country is a perverse and backward policy.

It's an election year, and that means that everyone -- on both sides -- is mired in the rhetoric, trying to score one for the team, but please come to the surface long enough to see us exiles for what we are: young American kids in love. Sometimes you're lucky enough to actually meet that person for whom you'd go to the ends of the Earth (in this case, quite literally), but if that person was born in another country, it can mean having to choose -- having to nip countless relationships and opportunities in the bud before they've blossomed, before they've borne fruit.

Look me full in the face. Look at Emily. Look at any of us and tell us to our faces that you'd wish this choice on your kids. On your grandkids. On your neighbors, friends, or even enemies.

This is shameful, cowardly, and wrong. I'm proud of Emily. I think she is brave. And my hope for her, for me, for any of us exiles is that we find somewhere welcoming in this world.