From the Edge of Home

The Illegal Detention of one American Citizen Echoes Loudly for the Rest of Us

Imago Images / Ralph Peters

I’m sitting in my hotel room in Germany, the curtains drawn closed though it’s still mostly light out. My suitcase, almost packed. Tomorrow, I fly home. Home. I say the word now like it’s something that I once believed in. A word that usually brings most people comfort. Now, it’s a melody that sounds off-key. A word that no longer brings comfort, but a sense of dread and angst.

I was born in the United States. My first words, my first steps, my first scraped knee, my first broken bone, all of my schooling—all on American soil. And yet, this evening, with my passport tucked inside my jacket pocket and a plane ticket in the wallet of my iPhone, I feel like a foreigner. Not to the country I’m in now, not to Europe, but to the one I came from, the country I was born in. To the place I should still be able to call home without question or fear.

But I’m nervous.

I’m nervous because I am a dual citizen. I hold another passport, an Italian passport. A tie to another place, another history, another freedom. I am a vocal critic of Donald Trump. I speak out. I do not believe in staying silent in the face of cruelty, corruption, or fascism. And today, my fear doesn’t feel irrational or like paranoia—it feels completely rational and prophetic.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held illegally in El Salvador’s CECOT prison, a place known not for justice but for its brutality. Republicans accuse him of being a member of MS-13 despite any substantiated evidence. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that his return to the United States should be facilitated by the Trump Administration. And yet, he is still in El Salvador. Still detained. Still disappeared by a system that feels eerily familiar. Ironic given I’m writing this from Germany.

This man is a U.S. citizen. And he is being held unlawfully while our own government remains defiant.

If they won’t fight for him, who will fight for me?

What is citizenship worth, if not the promise of protection? If not the assurance that, no matter where you are, your country will come for you if something goes wrong? I used to believe in that. But this silence in the face of Kilmar’s suffering—this is a warning. And I hear it loud and clear.

I’m nervous that my other passport, my other identity, makes me suspect. That my outspokenness and love for the country I was born in makes me a target. That returning to the country of my birth could also cost me my freedom. And the truth is, it shouldn’t be this way for anyone. Not for someone born in the United States like me. Not for someone naturalized, who swore an oath to the Constitution. Not for anyone who calls America home. This fear doesn’t belong to a free country. And it certainly doesn’t belong to any of its citizens.

I keep picturing myself going through border control. I imagine a border agent taking too long with my documents. I imagine a glance that lingers, a question that twists. I imagine how quickly silence can swallow someone, how fast it all can unravel.

This is not how it’s supposed to feel to go home.

But it is how it feels, when home no longer protects its people equally. When speaking truth feels like pulling a thread from your own safety net. When your passport might as well be a warning label.

I want to believe in America. I want to walk off that plane and feel like I’m stepping onto solid ground again. But this evening, I feel weightless. Unmoored. Like I’m going back to an America that is no longer recognizable.

And still, tomorrow, I will go. Because silence is a luxury I no longer have. Because Kilmar doesn’t have a choice. And because if we stop showing up, if we stop speaking, stop resisting, stop demanding more from our leaders, then we let fear win.

I’m nervous. I’m so nervous. And it shouldn’t be this way.

Bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia home.

Before the silence swallows someone else.