DISTRESS

A man who left Venezuela because he opposed the government there, thinking he might find safety here. A mother on her way to pick up her special needs child from school. A woman four months pregnant, bleeding and waiting to see a doctor. Nursing mothers whose milk dried up in detention because there was not enough food or water. Men taken from their jobs and sent to a prison in another country, their families left trying to understand where they went.

We are told this is about the worst of the worst. But many of those detained had no violent record. Some had no record at all. Some were housecleaners, restaurant workers, Uber drivers. Some were waiting for asylum hearings, showing up to court like they were told.

It is easy to argue about borders. It is harder to sit with the image of a nursing infant taken from its mother, or a pregnant woman denied medication. Cruelty does not become moral simply because it is carried out by the state.

What remains is the question of how much suffering we are willing to tolerate in our name, and whether we still recognize the humanity of the people on the other side of the badge.

For the clearest detail and strongest finished piece, I recommend using cardstock and a cutting machine. Cardstock provides the stability needed to hold the fine lines and structure of the design. You can download the image directly from this site or access the full set on the Cricut website under the What Remains Collection. These templates are free to use for personal and community projects, but they may not be sold or used for commercial purposes.

To download the PNG file, click on the image to the left, open a new page and right click to save on to your computer. Alternately, you can visit the collection page on the Cricut website for all the files here.