Life imitates art, but usually only the worst things about art. This one is straight out of the playbook from Johnny Dangerously!

I’m making light of this, but it’s actually a sad story about a guy swept up by history.

He was born in Greece, had never set foot in Iraq, and came to the USA as a six-month-old infant. He spoke no Arabic, had a history of mental disorders, had no place to live, and was a Catholic, so you can imagine how bad his life would have been there even in the best of circumstances. Unfortunately for him, the circumstances were anything but optimal. In addition to his other woes, he was a diabetic, and was unable to get his insulin in Iraq.

End of story.

His deportation was a death sentence.


The other side of the story:

To be fair, we didn’t want this guy in the USA. He was a bad egg in constant trouble with the law for many reasons, including violence. Given further time in the USA, he might well have injured, or even killed, law-abiding citizens. He had 20 criminal convictions on his record and really made no effort to fit in as a citizen or even as a decent person.

So what SHOULD we do with guys like this?

I guess we could have deported him to Sweden.