I am reaching out to all the many friends of Mattias Koivisto. Although it’s been many years since he moved down south, I know so many people from school years loved Mattie the way I do. It’s been 8 years since I saw him in person last, but that doesn’t change the 30 years of friendship and contact kept via phone.

Monday morning, Mattias was ripped from his couch, wife, and daughter, handcuffed in his boxers and tee shirt, and taken away by ICE. Apparently, they closed the block down and had “too many agents and police for his wife to count.” Mattie has struggled for many years with our government. He came here at the age of 6 when Reagan was in office, and his mom made some mistakes on his paperwork. After high school, he wanted to learn Finnish culture and traveled back there for a while. He came to spend Christmas with my family. I sat at JFK for 12 hours back in 2004; he never showed. He told immigration he was coming home and gave my name and address of where he would be living. The agent denied him re-entry and sent him back to Helsinki. After I finally got him back to New York, my dad and I did everything we could, even visited our local nys senator and congress representative for help; they laughed in our faces. This starts a 20-year long pattern of being ripped off by lawyers, countless tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees, that ultimately led to Monday morning’s horror show.

All I know is he’s being held somewhere in Georgia in a prison until they can arrange a flight to Helsinki. This left his wife and his daughter in a position where half the family income is gone, and they are facing eviction in 30 days. I know so many of us loved Mattias. He was one of those people who could make friends with everyone so quickly, and I always admired that. I am humbly asking anyone who can spare something to help his wife and daughter at this rough time for them to do so. Thank you for taking the time to read this.