“The Darién Gap, a stretch of nearly impenetrable rainforest along the border with Colombia, was transformed into a migratory highway in recent years as more than 1.2 million people from around the world traveled north toward the United States [seeking humanitarian aid].” — AP
It’s me: a woman who crawled through the most dangerous terrain on earth with my entire family for the sole purpose of stabbing a pen-like object into a series of perforated holes at a school gymnasium, YMCA, or struggling retail location. I’m not a deeply sympathetic figure seeking asylum from an unstable government, poverty, or persecution, but a specter-like being whose entire motivation is canceling your vote out with mine and, god willing, forcing you to circle the parking lot at your community center one extra time after snagging the choice spot the Founding Fathers would have wanted you to have.
I am a part of a proud, rich tradition that gave your nation the welfare queen, antifa false flag January 6 insurgents, and high school classmates who say mean things about you, not because they sincerely dislike you, but out of jealousy. I am your worst nightmare: someone who called in sick from one of my two exploitative jobs and briefly suppressed my PTSD to infinitesimally increase the chance of electing, what, a few Democrats? Independents? A motivational speaker–turned–lieutenant governor candidate whose two-thousand-word statement doesn’t contain a single paragraph break?
You might ask yourself, but probably won’t: Does that make any sense? Not really. But then, what obsession does? The heart wants what it wants.
Why do so many immigrants come through California? Porous borders? Simple geography? Those are the answers of a simpleton. What I and others like me seek is not a respite from the several-thousand-mile trek that has turned our feet to ribbons but a ballot as long as a CVS receipt asking you for feedback in exchange for a chance at winning a gift card. Your propositions alone make the journey worth it. That kidney dialysis one that pops up every election cycle is like ASMR for people with a proclivity like mine. Is it a union thing? Do patients want this? If passed, does it overturn some other obscure statute that is not mentioned in the literature? It took us a dozen study sessions, a monumental translation effort, and passing the hat to bring in paid experts to crack it, but crack it we did. And we will have our voice heard, deportation threats and jail time be damned. If we don’t, why did we bother to come here at all?
Truly, it’s all we talk about on our journey north. Yes, there are a few exchanges about avoiding robbery and rape by local armed groups and whether this or that stream has potable water, but those are purely logistical matters. As we crossed into Panama, my husband and I spent a lot of time wondering which snakes in our makeshift campsites were poisonous. Once we got our cell service back and could look it up, we were back to debating who we would vote for in the West Side council race.
“Are we voting that blonde lady back in?” I asked.
My husband shook his head in disgust. “That NIMBY? Of course not.”
I think of us not as brave souls taking extreme measures for better lives, but as members of the ballot box illuminati. Do you have any idea how many of us showed up in an audit of Georgia’s voter rolls, out of 8.2 million registered voters? Guess! But pick a really low number, so when I tell you it’s twenty, it’ll still sound like a lot.
Of course, it’s not only migrants from the south who are undermining the sacred right of your people that one-third of you don’t bother to exercise. I’m speaking of Europeans, Canadians, and Asians who, I’m sorry to say, we in the community know to be low-information voters. That’s what you get from people who got here on a commercial plane ride and then sat on their asses until their tourist visas expired. Even their voter fraud efforts are embarrassingly lazy. They show up at your church or water park–turned–polling place and fire off American-sounding names like “Marty McFly” or “Gwendolyn McDipshit” until the elderly lady running her finger down the dot matrix printout finds an approximate match. The next thing you know, the country’s worst sheriff has won a second term.
Even if they get busted, big deal. They return to their serviceable home nations, short half the NASDAQ, and watch your country burn.
We don’t have that luxury.
We need your country to function, and frankly, you’re letting it slip from your fingers.
We’re doing our bit to stop you from kicking older people into the streets, tanking your economy, and hobbling your finest universities. And, yes, we would strongly prefer to have a viable network of bike lanes, and we don’t get why that’s controversial.
If you choose to crack down on us, you have only yourself to blame for what happens after. It’s your choice, America.
Until then, hit us up for judge recommendations; we’re literally the only reliable source. We’re easy to find; we’re the ones wearing the I VOTED stickers.