This was his country. He lived and worked here for 35 years, raised a family, sent his kids to college, built houses, and employed others. And yet, because the mass deportation policy of the current administration caught Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in its sights, the Houston area resident is dead. An ICE agent shot him in self-defense, they say, after Araujo allegedly fled the agents’ traffic stop and tried to ram them with his truck in the process, they claim. ICE was not even looking for Araujo, according to a Homeland Security spokesperson.

This policy has turned into COVID. This illegal immigrant crackdown is now something that, like the pandemic, is touching everyone in the country in fewer and fewer degrees of separation. It seems as if most people know someone who is or was in custody or is suspected to be. If not, then you likely know someone hiding to keep from being rounded up.

This scourge does not have a vaccine. The Supreme Court ruled on the shadow docket that roving stops may continue, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh took the time to write that ethnicity can be a “relevant factor” in having reasonable suspicion to stop someone. So, if the Executive is the problem and the Judicial is not the solution, that just leaves the Legislative Branch to do something to put a stop to these tragic results of a racist policy. But it would have to be a Congress with a veto-proof majority, which, at present, is little more than a beautiful fantasy.

So what do we do for the next two and half years? There are networks across the country helping immigrants hide. Are there any helping them work?

There have to be Caucasian, yellow-dog Democrats driving pick-up trucks that can ferry equipment in the back for their brethren while smiling broadly at ICE agents who won’t stop a nice white guy. Mom can tail the truck in a hatch back, with a worker or two curled up under the fold. It sounds ludicrous, I know, but we are past time for getting creative to help friends, neighbors and countrymen – yes, I said countrymen – stay alive and support their families.

Start brainstorming, people. Life-saving ideas needed. For so very many of the people targeted, this is their country, too.