"YOU'RE ASKING ME TO BELIEVE THEY'RE NOT CRIMINALS?" THE BICYCLIST ASKS

 "I'LL BE DARNED!"

"What are you spying on?"

 

The bicyclist asks, wheeling

his Folding City Mult-Speed bike

into the parking lot outside

the chain link fence

at Yakima Air Terminal

where six people from

Yakima Immigration Response Network

photograph, count, observe

asylum seekers being deported

to their countries of origin.

 

"They're illegals,

but they're not all criminals?

You're trying to tell me that?

I'll be darned.

You're asking me to believe

they're not criminals."
 

"I'll be darned."

 

"They're getting them ready

to fly them out where ever."

 

"Huh. I'll be darned."

 

The bicyclist asks his questions

over and over, first of one,

then of the other, two women

from Immigration Response

answer his questions. They're

a local grassroots organization

supporting immigrant communities,

providing resources and training.

 

"You're asking me to believe

they just work here

and they're not criminals.

I'll be darned."

 

"I live in a place like this place.

No two ways about it--most

of them are illegal.

I'm from Central Illinois.

I mean they'll do the work

where nobody else will do it."

 

"Are you guys involved

with the homeless? I thought

we had homeless, but we can't

hold a candle to Yakima.

But you guys actually believe

these guys aren't criminals."

 

Jim Bodeen\

1 September--6 September 2020