AST Digital Magazine July 2017 Digital-July | Page 6

Volume 14
thanking families.
“To say the least, my heart goes out to you,” Mr.
Kelly told them. That night, they celebrated what
felt like their achievement over dinner and drinks
at the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania
Avenue.
It was expensive, they admitted, but it felt right. It
was strange that one of the sweetest moments of
their lives was about reliving the single bitterest.
But there had been a lot of that over the past year
or two, as they searched for a way to make it all
mean something: the startled and painful pride of
finding themselves booked on national television
and welcomed to the White House to talk about
the blight of illegal immigration, all because of
their sons and daughters, who were gone.
An Overnight Awakening
The local news reports said Dominic Durden’s
motorcycle was hit by a pickup truck as he rode
down Pigeon Pass Road in Moreno Valley, Calif.,
on his way to his job as a 911 dispatcher. He was
30.
They identified the other driver as Juan Zacar-
ias Tzun, who was charged with vehicular man-
slaughter. It was July 12, 2012. Sabine Durden
had last seen her son at the airport the day be-
fore, when he dropped her off for a trip to Atlanta.
Across the country, she said, she nearly blacked
out at the moment of his death. Later, after her
phone lit up with messages from his friends, she
was sure she knew why.
(Learn More. Courtesy of Defending the USA and YouTube.
Posted on Oct 23, 2016)
July 2017 Edition
Not until later, she said, did she find out from
some of her son’s friends in law enforcement
that Mr. Tzun had come to the country illegally
from Guatemala, and that he had been convict-
ed twice of driving under the influence.
He had been released on bail several weeks be-
fore the collision.
At his sentencing in 2013, Mr. Tzun blamed God
for the crash. Ms. Durden blamed the immigra-
tion system.
“If it was an accident, I could deal with it, but this
wasn’t an accident, because if that guy wasn’t
in the country at 5:45 on July 12, 2012, my son
would still be alive,” she said. (Mr. Tzun was de-
ported in 2014.)
But nobody overseeing her son’s case seemed
willing to view his death that way, she said. “You
feel like you got the runaround,” she said.
Ms. Durden, 59, had come to the United States
from Germany when she married an American in
the Army, eventually becoming a citizen.
He was a Democrat, so she was a Democrat.
She had never thought much about the immigra-
tion debate before Dominic died. Now it was her
whole life.
Then came Mr. Trump. Whenever she saw him,
he greeted her with a “great big hug,” she re-
called. “Dom’s mom,” he called her.
“He would say, ‘You’ll never be alone again. You’ll
never have to fight this alone,’” said Ms. Durden,
who went on to speak at three of his rallies.
(Sabine Durden on undocumented immigrants: “Build the
wall!” Courtesy of PBS NewsHour and YouTube. Posted on
Jul 18, 2016)