Ms. Beth Turner, a newly minted US Senator looked intently at the poster. Six years ago, she stepped on a roadside home-made crude explosive device, while serving her country in the faraway war in Iraq. Her both legs flew away, while the blood soaked mangled body lay motionless until rescued and air-lifted. After several critical surgeries and fitted with two metal legs, she would return to life sitting in a wheelchair. During her recovery, she never lost her hope of coming back to a regular life against the fear of being a burden to the society. In last election, she defeated an opposition career politician whose supporters unabashedly criticized her by chanting “She has no legs to stand on a strong platform.” She would respond “In fact, I do stand on two unbuckled metal ones.” She took another look at the poster, murmuring “Hope, the savior.”
Ms. Turner’s phone rang. An aide informed that the nation’s immigration bureau was about to deport a decorated veteran. Born in Honduras, the fellow came here as a child, later becoming a naturalized citizen to join the army. Engagement in multiple international wars from last few years started to take a heavy toll on returning vets who served in various war fares. Drug-addiction, suicide, and family violence had been pervasive now. This fellow was arrested in a street-corner drug-bust, branding him a criminal. Recently passed xenophobic new immigration law immediately stripped him off his foreign-born citizenship status, making him an “illegal alien”. Looking at her own artificial legs, Ms. Turner pondered “But, what about his service and sacrifice to our nation?” At the same time, the image from that poster flashed in her brain. She further wondered “And his hope of a better and safer life staying in the richest country on earth!”
Soon, her colleagues heard the noise from her speeding wheelchair through the hallway en route to the senate chamber to introduce a new bill banning this cruel aspect of the new law, especially when it came to foreign-born patriots.