My parents, Maria and Juan Viera, were Cuban refugees who climbed an American-made ladder to opportunity. Count me as a son of refugees who believes that generational success does not divest one of their duty to preserve that ladder for today’s generation.
When I see a refugee from Syria, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Nicaragua or Venezuela, I see my family. And Trump immigration policy is a cruel attack on the Juan and Maria Vieras of today—and on our best aspirational American values.
Many dismiss humanitarian concerns on Trump immigration policy by stating “this is about illegal immigration.” This is not a defense of illegal immigration. Few want an open border. Few want someone here illegally who commits a violent crime to stay in our country. This is not what is on the table here.
I speak of immigrants who are here legally—at least before cruel 2025 decrees. Many are refugees—admitted under a legal system of strict vetting. And all have journeys that go to the heart of what it is supposed to mean to be a Tampeno and American.
This all began with the shameful treatment in the last Presidential election of legal Haitian immigrants. Trump-Vance racist appeals on Haitian immigrants made the 1988 Willie Horton ads look tame. We were told that Ohio communities were invaded by pet eating “Haitian illegals.” Elon Musk—a man whose appeal to racism is matched by his dysfunctional desire for attention—alleged Haitians were illegally voting and helped mainstream the Great Replacement Theory. Commercials showed only Trump standing between hordes of minority immigrants and the suburbs.
Haitian immigrants—here legally through Temporary Protected Status (TPS)—were dehumanized. The outrage after this racist attack should have been louder.
When I was talking about this issue with my mother, she told me something in Spanish that translates well in English: Nobody opens their mouth until someone steps on your toes. Now more toes are being tragically stepped on.
Few saw this Haitian attack as a sign of things to come for so many other immigrants. They were wrong, with devastating results for good people.
In speaking to these Tampa communities, I see heartbreak and betrayal. There is something tragic about looking at a person who realizes how devalued their remarkable human journey is to a country they thought accepted them.
About 500,000 one-time legal immigrants under TPS—Latinos fleeing Communism and Haitians—are being expelled and eventually designated illegal. Our once bipartisan refugee program is pretty much gone. Refugee charities are defunded.
Most disturbing, Trump ordered Afghan refugees who entered after the 2021 Taliban Afghanistan takeover to leave—a death sentence for families that helped our troops during Operation Enduring Freedom. In 2021, I authored a Tampa City Council resolution welcoming Afghans to Tampa—now they are being expelled.
God knows we have to fight back against this cruel repudiation of our best values.
In the song “Long Walk Home,” Bruce Springsteen sang: “Your flag flying over the courthouse means certain things are set in stone: Who we are, what we’ll do and what we won’t.”
What we once assumed was set in stone is now being fractured.
We can not be silent or help make mainstream extremism that 75% of us would have been petrified of 15 years ago.
We have had tougher challenges in the past, and have fought forward. Imagine being a 19 year old enslaved woman listening to the reading of General Order No. 3 at Reedy Chapel AME Church in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865. Imagine being a Freeman voting in 1870. Imagine being an African-American fleeing the South as one of 6,000,000 in the Great Migration on your first night in Harlem.
Imagine being Harry T. Moore kissing Harriette Moore good night in 1951 or Medgar Evers coming home to his family in 1963. Imagine being Cesar Chavez or Dolores Huerta organizing migrant workers in 1965 Delano, California.
It has been said that what is right with American can heal what is wrong with America. Resistance to this inhumanity must incorporate what is right with America. We have to appeal to the decency of a people I know are decent—the American people.
America has always had an internal struggle between our beautiful and reactionary parts. The beautiful makes wrongs right. The beautiful builds bridges. And the beautiful repairs historic breaches of pain.
Positive movements against existential threats to civic foundations succeed by fighting like hell to appeal to the beautiful in our country.
And the beautiful—and what is right with America— is all around us. Think of Khizir and Ghazala Khan and their late son Captain Humayun Khan. Think of Corporal Ira Hayes, John Lewis, Heather Heyer, Fannie Lou Hamer, Rev. Joseph Lowery and Corporal Tibor Rubin. Think of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney. Think of Baptist Jimmy Carter building housing for the poor after leaving the White House peacefully. Think of the great-great-great granddaughter of souls who survived the Middle Passage crying when Barack Obama became President in 2008.
Think of my constituent Roy Caldwood—a 102 year old WWII Buffalo Soldier from the 92nd Infantry who received the Bronze Star for valor in Italy and speaks with hurt today of the racism and injustice he sees.
I quote a timely song from the Menzingers: “America, I love you but you’re freaking me out.” And I add: You are breaking my patriotic heart.
We set back in stone what has been fractured by remembering what is right and beautiful with America. This is true for the immigrant journeys that create our American heart—as well as so many important civic foundations. We have a crisis of inhumanity in the homeland. Believe in and fight for our country’s journey and promise—it is still here and needs zealous, patriotic and thoughtful fighters.
Luis Viera is the Tampa City Councilman for District 7. He recently announced a run for state house.
Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | BlueSky
This article appears in May 1-7, 2025.