The America I No Longer Recognize

August 23, 2025

In July 1987, I came to America as a five-month-old child, adopted from the Philippines after being given up by my birth mother and spending my earliest days in an orphanage. I arrived with nothing but need, and America gave me everything. My parents gave me everything. This country embraced me with open arms. It offered me safety, family, and opportunity. For me, America was not just a place on a map; it was a promise.

But today, that promise feels broken. I no longer recognize the America that welcomed me. Governor Jim Pillen’s plan to convert the Work Ethic Camp in McCook into a detention facility for immigrants awaiting deportation, and his decision to authorize the Nebraska State Patrol to partner with ICE, is not the America that raised me. It is the America of fear, scapegoating, and exclusion. It's a betrayal of the values I grew up cherishing. Instead of opening doors, Nebraska is locking them shut. Instead of offering hope, we're building jail cells.

Let’s be honest: this is not about removing dangerous criminals from our communities. Many of those who will be detained or deported have no criminal backgrounds. Their only so-called "offense" is being here without legal status, often after fleeing poverty, violence, or oppression.

I know what it means to be vulnerable and to depend on the compassion of strangers. My story could have been very different if America had turned its back on me. And that is what we are doing now, turning our backs on people whose only dream is the same dream that once gave me a future.

When people shout “Come here legally!” they ignore the truth: our immigration system is not a simple line you stand in. It is one of the most restrictive, expensive, and broken systems in the world. Legal pathways are scarce, slow, and deliberately closed to many who need them most. It is a labyrinth designed to exclude. To demand “legal” entry without acknowledging this reality is not only dishonest, it is cruel.

And the hypocrisy is staggering. The same political leaders who preach “law and order” and rail against immigrants for “breaking the law” stand behind a man convicted on 34 felony counts to lead this nation. They demand accountability from the powerless while excusing criminality from the powerful; while mothers, fathers, and children are branded as criminals for the simple act of surviving.

This is not about law and order. This is about fear and power. It is about targeting and scapegoating brown-skinned immigrants for political gain. It's about locking up people not because they are dangerous, but because they are different. It's about stripping away the very promise that made America a place of refuge for me and so many others.

We are better than this. Nebraska should be better than this. We should be keeping families together, not tearing them apart. We should be investing in policies that strengthen families and that remind us of the truth: immigrants are not the problem, they are part of the promise. We should be investing in solutions that honor human dignity, not building more detention centers for people whose only dream was to belong.

The America I grew up believing in was not perfect, but it was kind. It did not turn its back on the desperate or punish people simply for existing. If we embrace detention and deportation as our answer, then we are not just betraying immigrants; we are betraying ourselves, our history, and every child who once believed this was the land of hope.

I was once that child with no voice, no home, and no future. America chose to see me, to claim me, to give me a chance at life. How dare we now look away from the children, mothers, and fathers standing at our doorstep? To deny them is to deny the very promise that saved me.