By Pious Ali
“Families belong at home” is a deeply rooted belief shared across every culture, language, and faith—including in America. Home is where children are nurtured with love, where elders are respected and cared for, and where traditions and values are passed from one generation to the next. Home is more than a physical space; it is the heart of belonging, connection, and continuity. To detain anyone from their home is to break with a belief that lies at the core of the American promise.
Yet today, homes are being torn apart by the policies of President Donald Trump, whose administration has unleashed an aggressive and traumatizing campaign of mass deportations targeting immigrant communities.
Across the state and country, from Portland to Lewiston, Bangor, Biddeford, and beyond, we are witnessing homes shattered, lives upended, and communities gripped by fear. ICE agents show up unannounced. People are detained without warning. Families are separated in the middle of the night. Loved ones are loaded onto buses and planes to nowhere, deported not because they pose a danger, but because they exist in a system that refuses to see their humanity.
These actions are not about safety. They are not about justice. They are about power, control, and cruelty. They are meant to send a message that if you are an immigrant, especially if you are Black, poor, undocumented, or speak with an accent, then you are disposable.
Even worse, Trump’s policies are not only uprooting people, they are sending many to war zones and places where political persecution and violence are rampant, condemning them to lives of extreme poverty and suffering. In other words, the U.S. government is knowingly deporting human beings to dangerous situations where some will die.
So let us speak our belief loudly: families belong at home.
The people being deported are not strangers to America. They are nurses caring for our elderly. Restaurant owners, faith leaders, students, and neighbors. Taxi drivers working overnight to provide for their children. Many came here fleeing war, climate disasters, or political persecution. Many have lived here for decades. Their children are U.S. citizens. They pay taxes. They dream. They build.
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Immigrants are vital threads in the fabric of this nation. The pain of losing even one family to deportation breaks trust. It breaks hope. For all of us. We are connected.
To accept what is happening under this administration is to accept a country where belonging is conditional and home can be taken away with the stroke of a pen or the knock on a door.
We must resist this narrative and reclaim our own. Our communities know the power of family. We know what it means to flee and to rebuild. We know what it means to be told we don’t belong – and to rise anyway.
This moment demands that we speak not only with our voices, but with our policies, our votes, and our courage. Schools, cities, churches, and local leaders must take a stand. Silence is complicity. And so we say:
Stop the raids.
Stop the deportations.
Stop the fear.
Families belong at home.
Not in detention centers.
Not in backroom courtrooms.
Not on buses and planes headed to nowhere.
We are strongest when we protect one another. And we are safest when our communities can live without fear.
Now is the time to remember who we are and who we must continue to be. A nation of immigrants. A people of conscience. A community that rises together.
Because in the end, the question is not whether we will stand up for immigrant families. The question is whether we will remain silent as they are torn apart.
Let us choose justice. Let us choose love. Let us choose home.
Because families belong at home. Always.
