Reza Zavvar was kidnapped by ICE while walking his dog in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Why do I call it kidnapping? Because he is not charged with any crimes; he hasn’t committed one. He’s a legal, permanent resident of the U.S. and has been for 40 years. His detention is cruel and unjust.
Many of us know him as a friend and Walter Johnson High School Alumni classmate. I know him and his family as extraordinarily kind, thoughtful friends who held me and my mother up when my dad was dying of cancer.
This NBC4 story refers to him as a gentle giant. That’s exactly right. We played high school football together, and one of my clearest memories is Reza’s worried face looking down at me after he accidentally knocked me out during a tackling drill. That our team had a starting defensive tackle whose primary personality trait is empathy might help explain our team’s poor record that season.
His kindness, his loving family, and the affection so many have for him should not matter. He’s a human being with human rights—a legal resident of a nation of laws. Reza should be at home right now. Instead, he’s being held in an ICE jail in Texas while his family grieves and tries to figure out how to get him back the freedom that is the right of every person in this country.
Keep Reza in mind and spread the word about what is being done to him and others like him, others like us.