Tag Archives: detention

Lessons from the Pitch

I didn’t grow up with soccer. The only time I played was in a pasture in Austria, where I was a student. The school, Seminar Schloss Bogenhofen, was in the countryside near the town of Braunau, infamous for being the birthplace of Hitler.

One of only a few American students, I was encouraged to join my Austrian classmates in a pick-up game of Fussball. On the field, I quickly embarrassed myself with my clumsy moves. I also kept a lookout for cow pies.

Fast forward to Stoneham in the 1980s and my wife and I are standing with other parents on the sidelines at the soccer field off Broadway. Our 10-year-old son has just received a pass and punched it into the goal.

Although he would later abandon soccer for basketball, we gradually developed an interest in “the beautiful game.” Not yet serious fans, we nevertheless enjoyed World Cup and Olympic contests, especially the successes of the USA Women’s team.

This year, with World Cup games coming to Boston, we’ve spent way too much time watching matches on TV. We’ve cheered not only for our country, which showed great talent before losing to Belgium, but for various teams from around the world.

In picking which teams to cheer for, besides USA, I follow two principles. The first is, I like the underdogs. Who doesn’t like an upset? Or a herculean effort by a low-ranked team, like Cape Verde, who pushed Argentina to the limit before bowing out in the round of 16.

The second is, I like teams from places I’ve been, or have friends and family members living there. For this reason, and also because they were such fun to have in Boston, we cheered loudly for Scotland.

For similar reasons, I cheered for Germany because I have cousins there. I cheered for African teams because I was born in Tanzania. I cheered for Portugal because of our neighbors, who came from Portugal. I cheered for Mexico because we once took a train to Mexico City. I cheered for Brazil because we have so many Brazilians among us. And I cheered for Canada because, well, how can we not?

Having the World Cup in North America allows us to see some of the best players in the world. Like Messi, Ronaldo and Mbappé. Erling Haaland and Harry Cane aren’t bad either. And it brings hordes of fans into our cities, stadiums, bars and streets. In the faces of fans from around the world we see the same spectrum of emotions as those we feel—boisterous displays of joy and pride, bouts of anxiety and the agony of defeat.

We also learn about their countries and culture. Googling during water breaks, I find out that Cape Verde has a tiny population of only half a million, or that Uruguay is in the southern cone of South America east of Argentina and south of Brazil. Its name comes from the river Uruguay, which means “bird river.”

Watching the World Cup, I realize that the world we are seeing is richly diverse and abundant in cross-border bonhomie. In many ways, it reflects the demographic landscape that is already here. A nation of immigrants, we revel in the reunion of cultures from around the world.

I also realize, sadly, that this is a world our President and his lieutenants despise. It’s not just his America First doctrine and his disdain for other nations and cultures. Or his contempt for “shithole countries,” and his slanderous rants against Haitians, Mexicans and Somalians. It’s his open espousal of white nationalism and his attempt to rewrite American history.

It’s also his attempt to purge America of its black and brown immigrants. Even as I sit on my couch enjoying a World Cup match, I know that in 212 detention centers around the United States, some 70,000 immigrants are awaiting deportation. Thousands more are being arrested each day. They are in essence no different from the players we see on the pitch, or the fans that follow them. They are no different from us.

As we watch the semi-finals and championship game—and as we celebrate our 250th Birthday—this World Cup has something to teach us. Like the inspiring photographs of the earth taken from the recent moon voyage, the World Cup should convince us that we are, in truth, one world. It’s time we start acting like it.

What Happens There Matters Here

Sunday morning Becky and I walked through heavy rain to a tent set up just outside Delaney Hall, an ICE detention prison holding over a 1,000 men and women in Newark, NJ. We had driven over from our daughter’s home in a Newark suburb. She had arrived earlier, joining other volunteers to set up coffee and food along with clothing, diapers and toys for families hoping to visit their loved one inside.

“Come to the Tent” in Spanish is posted by volunteers providing support to families of detainees at the Delaney Hall Detention Center.

Situated off the turnpike in New Jersey among huge gas tanks, warehouses, depots and a state prison, Delaney Hall has been the flashpoint for protests of its inhumane treatment of inmates. On Friday, around 300 detainees began a weekend hunger and labor strike and called on Gov. Mikie Sherrill to visit Delaney Hall, a private, for-profit facility, and address their complaints.

The day before, Senator Andy Kim (Dem-NJ) had visited Delaney Hall and met with inmates and advocates. Voicing his support for the detainees, he wrote this on his Facebook page:

I rushed to ICE detention center Delaney Hall yesterday when I heard detainees began a hunger strike. Here’s what I saw:

An 18 yr-old high-school student crying and saying she just wanted to graduate senior year;

A pregnant woman unable to get full OBGYN medical support;

A woman who had a miscarriage in the detention facility and left to manage all on her own;

A mom not allowed to spend more that a few minutes with 4-month-old baby;

A husband of an American-citizen wife and kid;

A carton with the milk inside congealed solid (expiration date is tomorrow); [there were also complaints of worms in the food.]

A man there for nearly a year with no movement in his legal efforts;

A document showing next Tuesday’s court docket showing 74 cases before one judge in one day (averages about 5 minutes a case);

A man telling me ICE is trying to deport him to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there is an active Ebola outbreak (he’s from South America originally);

Numerous people who were arrested at scheduled interviews for Green Cards (trying to follow the formal process);

A family unable to find out what hospital their family was sent to (ICE said they cannot give any medical updates to families of hospitalized detainees);

The Statue of Liberty as I left the facility to drive home. [You can see the Statue from Liberty State Park in Jersey City, not far from Delaney Hall.]

In another column, I’ll write more about what happens at Delaney Hall, and in the tent where volunteers provide support to families of detainees. Because what happens there, even if it’s not on the 6 o’clock evening news, must matter to us.

Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark, NJ