I was 7 when red and blue lights cut across our living room walls in the middle of the night, and then my father was gone. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, then known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the early 1990s, had come to arrest my father and deport him for violating his student visa. His crime? Delivering newspapers before dawn so he could pay for university classes and provide for his family.
My parents had immigrated to the United States in the early 1980s, excited to build a life together. Our one-bedroom apartment became a landing spot for others, a place where newly arrived Nigerian immigrants — whether we knew them or not — could find refuge. My mom would tease that my dad “was very quick to share his salt and pepper shakers with strangers.”
One day, INS raided my parents’ home. They were looking for someone else, one of the people who once stayed with us. That person wasn’t there. But my father’s paycheck stub was sitting on the coffee table. The officer picked it up and asked why my father was working since he was here on a student visa. Pointing to my visibly pregnant mother, my dad explained that he was trying to provide for his growing family.
It didn’t matter to them.
