Recently, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) received a letter and poem from a man named Alejandro who is being held in the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington.
Alejandro, who refers to himself as Alien 456, has been in detention for almost a year. He wrote to LIRS to express his “joy” at having received a Christmas card through our Hope for the Holidays program.
“Let me begin by saying how much it meant in receiving a Christmas card this year. It is reassuring to know that there is somebody out there who cares enough to do this for those of us who are trapped in Detention Centres all across America, ‘Land of the Free.’”
Alejandro’s letter included an original poem, “Alien,” written on Columbus Day 2019. He gave us permission to share his words with our supporters.
We are so moved by his powerful writing and grateful to him for sharing his story.
ALIEN
I walk among you, so they say
doing the same nothing each and every day
waiting for MY FREEDOM to arrive
from dawn to dusk I must survive
I am kind, live peacefully
hope to soon be FREE
confined by choice, I AM NOT
memories of MY LIFE is all I got
I walk among you, so they say
brought onto earth the month of May
my Journey took me here and there
life it is, “NOT ALWAYS FAIR”
so many faces I have seen
from foreign places I have never been
here today/ gone tomorrow
doing time… TIME we cannot borrow
most were kind, few were rude
some derived from a different brood
I walk among you, so they say
they WALLED me in, can’t just go away
got caught up in the game
I no longer have a name
MY LIFE I have to fix
NAMELESS NOW
I AM
NUMBER
456
To learn more about how you can help migrants in detention, visit our Detention Visitation page.