Axar.az presents an article, "Cruelty and Immigration" by John Samuel Tieman.​​

My nation has become crueler. This is especially evident in our policies toward immigrants.

I am no expert in immigration law and policy. It's complex. There's a clear need for reform. To that end, I defer to the lawyers and legislators. But I don't need to be an expert in cruelty in order to name it.

Presidents value moral authority. Jack Kennedy called us to civic-mindedness. President Johnson strove toward a "Great Society". Richard Nixon promised “peace with honor”. Ronald Reagan called us all to “a city on a hill”. They called us to be a righteous republic that cherished democratic ideals. But Donald Trump, not so much.

For all his "Make America Great Again," Trump's definition of greatness rests solely on the use of power. To President Trump, a great nation is not one that leads the world, but one that has the power to ignore suffering in pursuit of self-interest.

And power is what the administration has over immigrants. Trump's power over immigrants centers on immigrants of color. I can't recall the last time I heard of the deportation of a Swedish milkmaid. We rarely racially profile Canadians.

My nation has made it clear to immigrants that, if you come here, the process of naturalization will be miserable and even dangerous. The last I read, there still are between 1,000 and 1,360 children waiting to be reunited because of our family separation and ”kids in cages” policies. One 4-year-old has a rare form of metastatic cancer and was deported without medication or consultation with physicians.

To illustrate this cruelty, I'd like to pause at some length for a story close to home. Here in my home, St. Louis, in a suburb named Overland. Nixon Giovanni Perez Paz and Glendy Marisol González de la Cruz were from Guatemala. The two were here without legal status. They were fleeing violence and poverty. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson confirmed that agents located and arrested Perez Paz for “being unlawfully present in the United States.” The spokesperson said the husband was convicted twice for drunken driving and put on four years' probation. No records of this appear in any court. ICE also pointed to a 2010 open-container charge against Perez Paz in Palm Beach, Florida, an ordinance violation that prosecutors dropped. Nixon Giovanni Perez Paz was deported from the United States in April of this year. He was 43. His wife was 25.

I've talked to the neighbors of Nixon and Glendy. The man's criminal history seems to be that once, when he was a 25-year-old, he liked to party. Since that time, he married, regularly went to church, worked two jobs, paid his taxes, and sent money to the old country to support his family still there. I spoke to the superintendent of the schools that their children attended. He remembers them because the couple never missed a parent-teacher meeting.

Glendy followed ICE’s advice to self-deport. She wanted to reunite with her husband. She took her three daughters with her. That was on June 17, 2026. There's a photo of her and her girls at the St. Louis International Airport. You'd think they were on vacation. They were right about the violence. Five weeks later, the couple was bound and shot dead in a sugarcane field.

I have a rule. Dr. Tieman's Rule # 56. Unless your name sounds something like Yolanda Three Trees or Clarence Many Deer, you don't get to complain about immigrants. If your name is Reagan or Kennedy or, lest we forget, Lincoln. Or if – another off-hand example – your mother is from Scotland and your wife was born in Yugoslavia.

It's cruel. Think about Glendy and Nixon. Frankly, I don't care about their immigration status. They were good neighbors. They worked here. They raised their children here. They went to church here. And if Nixon drank a bit too much 20 or 25 years ago, since when is that a death penalty case? Oh, yeah, and which of us wants our whole life judged based upon the stupidest thing we did when we were young? I don't care about their immigration status. They were good neighbors. I care about compassion for our neighbors. I care about love.

I pause at length for Glendy and Nixon to simply again say this. My nation has become crueler. This is especially evident in our policies toward immigrants. And these policies took the lives of two of my neighbors, folks who once lived three or so miles from my home.