THX Pulse: The Cruel Calculus of Deportation — When Fear Becomes the System
TXH Series Hub: THX Pulse - Systems, Emotions & the Urgency of Now
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"He shouldn’t have broken the law."
"She had years to get her papers in order."
"If they get deported, that’s what they deserve."
These are things people say when fear and judgment have replaced empathy and memory.
They are things said by people who have forgotten that nearly all of us are here because someone else crossed a border—geographic, legal, cultural, or linguistic.
They are things said by people who don’t understand what it’s like to lie awake wondering if the system you thought would protect your family is the very thing that might destroy it.
When the System Reverses
What we are seeing now is not normal.
Migrants—some of whom have lived and worked here for years—are being arrested without warning. Some have had their legal status revoked overnight, without due process or clear explanation. Others are being sent to prisons in El Salvador notorious for human rights violations and described by advocates as concentration camps.
There are even proposals being floated to send U.S. citizens to these facilities—if they are suspected of aiding migrants.
Let that sink in.
What This Means Through THX
Utility Breakdown:
Security: Gone.
Clarity: Missing.
Closure: Denied.
Emotion Evoked: Fear. Powerlessness. Anguish.
PERMAH Erosion:
Positive Emotion becomes trauma.
Meaning is stripped from their lives.
Health & Wellbeing deteriorate under the weight of uncertainty and threat.
Prospect Theory in Action: These families already risked everything to escape what was unbearable. Now they’re facing the loss of what little they gained—not from failure, but from policy shifts many refused to see as more than rhetoric or worse, they justified them. And that pain—the fear of losing what they’ve rebuilt—is deeper than most people can imagine.
Unless, of course, you've been there.
I Know What It’s Like
I’ve never been deported. I’m a U.S. citizen.
But I know what it’s like to be a single parent lying awake at night, wondering if someone is going to take your child from you—or take you, leaving your child with no one.
I know what it’s like to trust the system to protect you, only to learn it is too slow, too indifferent, or too broken to care.
And I’ve watched families—some of whom I know, some of whom I’ve worked with—face that fear every single day, simply because they are migrants.
I had a college roommate on a student visa who built a life, married, had children. I’ve worked with professionals here on H-1B visas. I’ve built businesses alongside people who crossed oceans and borders to be here. They are friends. Colleagues. Human beings.
I Come From Migrants Too
My ancestors were among the earliest French settlers in Canada. They crossed into New York in the 1800s, then helped build the farms and cities of Wisconsin. I’ve seen the census records—many of them were illiterate. They signed their names with an X. They were loggers, farmers, soldiers. Two of them fought for the Union in the Civil War.
They came with nothing but loyalty and the will to work. They helped tame the wilderness. They helped build America. And yet—by today’s standards—they likely wouldn’t have made it through immigration.
They might’ve been arrested. Deported. Forgotten.
The very people who gave me this name—a name misspelled by someone who didn’t understand them—would have been called illegals. And their labor, sacrifice, and legacy might have never existed.
The Hypocrisy is Staggering
I’m not excusing illegal entry.
But I’m also not excusing a system that arbitrarily revokes status, arrests without due process, or separates families under the guise of law and order—especially when those who champion it claim we should be a Christian nation, following God’s law.
Didn’t they once say, “When man’s law contradicts God’s law, we know whom to obey”?
Where is that energy now, when families are torn apart, when the widow, the orphan, and the stranger at the gate are turned away with a sneer?
The Real Danger
There may be legitimate deportations. But each time Trump and his team cross a line—propose a new legal theory, test a precedent, criminalize compassion—they widen the cracks in our constitutional conscience.
They are not restoring law.
They are erasing norms.
And they are laying the groundwork for a system where no one is safe—especially if your existence makes someone else uncomfortable.
My Ask
Remember where your family came from.
Remember that laws can be weaponized.
Remember that fear is the soil where injustice grows.
Your Turn
Do you know someone who's lived in fear of being taken away?
Do you have ancestors who wouldn't have passed today’s immigration test?
Do you believe this is the America we want to be?
Let’s not just mourn what’s happening. Let’s speak out—before the cracks become chasms.
Interpretation:
This stark, monochrome image declares a fundamental truth: We all came from migrants. It contrasts the historical universality of migration with the cold cruelty of modern deportation policy. The bold typography reflects how personal, emotional, and political this conversation must become. It’s a call to remember—not just who we are, but where we came from—and to refuse a future built on fear.