I’m an attorney specializing in time-and-space asylum law. I work for a nonprofit legal firm known as Terrestrial Charities. I don’t make nearly as much money as the attorneys who broker contracts with interplanetary businesses, but it’s a sacrifice I chose to make because I knew this is what I wanted to do before I even applied to law school.
This is a social issue that I care about deeply: I’m a second generation descendant of a temporal immigrant. My grandmother fled to the 26th century to escape from her abusive husband in the 21st century and seek a better life for her daughter (my mother). I never met my grandmother. For some reason, my mother was always secretive about what became of Grandma, even though she told her immigration story hundreds of times. All I know is that when my mom became an adult, Grandma disappeared. Was she kidnapped? Was she murdered? Did she retire and move to a home where the entire planet has paradise weather that’s perfect for retirement? Regardless, every temporal immigrant I help makes me feel like I’m helping Grandma and that I’ve giving them a chance, just like the attorney who helped her.
I also wanted to specialize in time-and-space asylum law because I have seen first-hand the prejudice that temporal immigrants faced. This includes the verbal abuse of being called names like “drifters,” a derogatory term for temporal immigrants, similar to the “wetback” term referring to Hispanic immigrants in the U.S. in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Even those of us who were born in the 26th century are treated as second-class citizens. I take issue with that because temporal immigrants have made valuable contributions to 26th century society. Who built the spaceships that took the explorers to the far reaches of the solar system? Who designed the probes and telescopes that charted the known universe? I mean, just look at the president of the Intergalactic Conference! He’s half 20th century, and his wife is 100% 19th century. I don’t know what it is, but for some reason, the rich and powerful love to pick up their trophy wives from the 19th century. Maybe it’s because the women in those days went to great lengths to make their skin pale, and fair skin was back in vogue in the 26th century?
Sorry for the rant. I get really passionate when it comes to politics, especially when it comes to issues that directly affect me. I just hate hearing complaints from the old-timers (who were born well after the people they resent, I might add) claiming that temporal immigrants are a threat to “temporal purity” and that they drain temporal resources. What does that even mean? Ever since time travel was discovered in the late 21st century, when have the demographics of time been “pure”? When have we not relied on temporal immigrants? And what kind of resources are diminished by letting people travel back and forth between various epochs of time? And what about the retirees that love to take vacations in pre-time travel eras? Do they ever consider they can be just as much of a threat to “temporal purity” as the honest, hardworking temporal immigrants? And how is it, after 500 years of leaps and bounds in scientific advancement and cultural diversity, people are still making the same complaints that Americans used to make about Middle Eastern, Hispanic, Italian, Irish, Jewish, German, and Chinese immigrants in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries? Why don’t we learn the lessons of history?
That was another rant. Sorry.
Enough background. Here’s the story with my latest client:
I met her during a routine “Know Your Rights” presentation, which is an outreach program that Terrestrial Charities provides to detained temporal immigrants. After each of these presentations, we interview the detainees to see if there are any that need our legal representation (the Temporal Aliens Act provides a right to legal counsel for immigrants in temporal removal proceedings, but does not allow for court-appointed counsel to those cannot afford it).
At the risk of going into another rant, I just want to point the injustice of the authorities keeping temporal immigrants locked up with intergalactic criminals. It’s outrageous because breaking the law is worlds apart from trying to make a new life for yourself. For example, victims of domestic violence should not be lumped with murderers, drug dealers, or those who commit heinous crimes like spaceship theft or destruction of Intergalactic Conference property.
Sorry, no more rants.
I asked this woman the standard intake questions: place of birth, time period of birth, places and times of residence, etc. I have to ask these questions because the Intergalactic Conference recently passed the Temporal Aliens Act, mandating that any non-citizen of the 26th century had to be removed to their time period of origin but, as a compromise to public outrage, grants asylum to temporal immigrants who had a well-founded fear of persecution in their time period of origin.
She indicates that she was born in Miami, Florida, USA, Planet Earth, on January 25, 1992, and resided there continually until her departure in 2017.
“How did you end up here?”
She told me she was detained at the portal when Portal Patrol guards apprehended her. She was classified as an arriving “alien.” Not alien in the sense of extraterrestrials, but rather people who aren't from the 26th century. Funny thing, it’s 2517, Earth has colonies scattered throughout the solar system and has charted 63% of the known universe, yet it still hasn’t discovered intelligent life that didn’t originate on Earth. I would say more, but I promised no more rants.
“Are you afraid to return to 2017?”
Yes.
“Why?”
“My husband thought I was cheating on him and he said he’d kill me. He owns a major casino but doesn’t pay the bills or let me have any money, not even to buy a pair of shoes for myself, or to buy diapers and milk for our daughter. I tried reporting him to the police, but they never arrested him, never even followed up. I think it’s because he bribed them to do nothing because I saw him pass a brown paper bag to a cop and shake hands. When he found out I had reported his abuse to the police, he beat me until my ribs cracked, and told our daughter to stop crying, that there was no reason for her to cry. I had to drive myself to the hospital and bring my daughter with me because I was afraid of what my husband would do to her, and I was afraid that the paramedics would tell the police what happened, and that the police would tell him that I ran my mouth again. My doctor told me I was lucky to be alive, and that I needed to recuperate in the hospital for a couple of weeks.
“When I recovered, I decided that I couldn’t go home. I took my daughter with me and used my life savings to pay a smuggler to get me to the nearest time portal, as far in time and space from my husband as possible.”
My jaw drops and I’m speechless. I have heard this story, word-for-word, from my mother’s lips hundreds of times. There’s only one person this immigrant could be.
“Grandma?”
