A few days ago, I posted a sentence on social media: Most immigrants aren’t asking for special treatment. They’re asking for the same things most people want: safety, stability, opportunity, and the chance to build a life.
It was one of the simplest things I shared all week, and it was also the thing that seemed to resonate most.
I think part of the reason is that so much of the conversation about immigration begins with the assumption that immigrants are asking for something extraordinary: exceptions, benefits, preferential treatment, or access to something that belongs to someone else.
But when I think about the immigrant families I know, the stories I read, and my own family’s reasons for coming to America, what people are usually trying to build is remarkably ordinary. They want to feel safe, earn a living, raise a family, get medical care when they are sick, participate in their communities, and believe that tomorrow might be more stable than yesterday.
None of those desires should sound radical.
And yet this week, I found myself thinking about what happens when even the most basic of those needs becomes conditional.
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When medical care becomes part of the immigration debate
On August 1, 41-year-old Edwin Lopez-Cornejo died after suffering a medical emergency while detained at Delaney Hall, an immigration detention facility in Newark, New Jersey.
Lopez-Cornejo was from El Salvador. According to his family, he had diabetes, high blood pressure, and a seizure disorder, and they say he struggled to get adequate access to medication and medical treatment while detained. His mother told reporters that the day before his death, he called her and said he had lost feeling in part of his face and arm.
His family has called for an independent investigation. ICE has said Lopez-Cornejo received appropriate medical care while in custody and that staff responded to his medical emergency. The exact circumstances surrounding his death remain under scrutiny. The Associated Press reported on his family’s allegations and ICE’s response here.
On August 7, New Jersey officials also announced a civil-rights investigation into Delaney Hall. Reuters reported on that investigation here.
There are still facts about Lopez-Cornejo’s final days that investigators need to establish. But his death raises a larger question: Why do some of the most basic human needs become things we debate once the person needing them is an immigrant?
Medical care should not be special treatment.
If someone you loved told you they had lost feeling in part of their face or arm, you would want them to receive medical attention. You would not first ask whether they were a citizen, whether they had entered the country in a way you approved of, or whether they had done enough to deserve care.
You would recognize that there was a sick human being in front of you.
And yet immigration has a strange way of turning things we otherwise understand as basic—safety, medical care, family, stability, and the ability to work and build a life—into questions of deservingness.
Who has to prove they deserve an ordinary life?
There is a familiar pattern in the way immigrants are defended in this country. We point out how hard they work, how much they pay in taxes, how many businesses they start, how many jobs they create, and how much they contribute to American culture.
We tell stories about immigrant doctors, entrepreneurs, scientists, teachers, and valedictorians. Those stories deserve to be told, and immigrant achievement deserves to be celebrated.
But immigrant dignity should never depend on achievement.
What happens to the immigrant who does not have an impressive résumé? What happens to someone who struggles, makes mistakes, never becomes wealthy, or never produces an inspirational ending?
What happens to the person whose greatest ambition is simply to pay the rent, pick their children up from school, cook dinner, sleep safely, and wake up tomorrow with some sense of stability?
That life should not be less worthy of dignity.
One of the problems with the way we talk about immigration is that immigrants are often asked to prove their value before their humanity is taken seriously. We defend people by explaining what they contribute, how productive they are, or how exceptional they have become.
But belonging cannot be built on a permanent performance review.
A person should not have to become extraordinary before we decide they deserve an ordinary life.
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Most immigrant lives are made of ordinary things
My own immigrant story includes ambition. I have built businesses, worked hard, and spent years creating things that matter to me.
But I do not believe any of that is why I deserve to belong here.
When my family came to America, we were not arriving with a promise that we would become exceptional. We were trying to build a life. That is what so many immigrant families are doing.
They are packing lunches, going to work, sending children to school, scheduling doctor’s appointments, celebrating birthdays, calling relatives in another country, buying groceries, worrying about bills, making friends, falling in love, and figuring out what to make for dinner.
Political rhetoric has a way of making immigrants enormous. We become a border crisis, a labor force, a voting bloc, a threat, a statistic, or a success story. But most lives are not lived at that scale.
Most lives are built through routines, relationships, small decisions, and the quiet hope that tomorrow will be manageable.
Sometimes an immigrant is simply someone trying to wake up somewhere safe and build a life they can stay in.
The right to be ordinary
Recognizing the humanity in that kind of life does not require pretending immigration policy is simple. Countries have laws. Governments make decisions about borders and immigration. People can disagree about what those laws and policies should be.
But there should still be a line beneath the debate.
A person’s immigration status should not determine the amount of humanity we are willing to extend to them.
We should be able to argue about policy without turning dignity into a reward.
We should be able to enforce laws without becoming indifferent to suffering. And we should be able to talk about immigration without first demanding that immigrants prove they are productive enough, successful enough, grateful enough, or sympathetic enough to deserve care.
Because once dignity becomes conditional, there is always another test.
First you have to work hard enough. Then you have to assimilate enough. Then you have to be grateful enough. Then successful enough. Then useful enough. There is always another reason someone can decide you have not earned your place.
That is not belonging.
I want more immigrant stories about extraordinary people. I want to celebrate immigrant founders, artists, leaders, doctors, creators, organizers, and people building remarkable things.
But I also want immigrant stories in which nothing remarkable happens.
I want stories where someone builds a modest life, raises children, changes careers, falls in love, makes mistakes, rests, grows older, and lives.
There is freedom in being allowed to be ordinary. It means your humanity is no longer being measured by your usefulness. It means you do not have to turn your life into evidence for why you deserve to be here.
Most immigrants are not asking to be treated as more important than everyone else. They are asking for many of the same things everyone else hopes to find in a life: safety, stability, opportunity, care, family, community, a future, and somewhere that feels like home.
A question for you
What part of an ordinary life do you think immigrants are too often expected to earn or justify?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
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Gwen Lane is a Filipina American immigrant, writer, founder, and cultural commentator behind Beauty of Belonging—an independent publication exploring immigrant identity, beauty, ambition, cultural power, and what it means to feel at home. Subscribe, share, and upgrade to a paid subscription to support independent immigrant-led media that centers immigrant identity, dignity, and belonging.
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