Imagine the US economy collapsed; gangs are roaming the streets, breaking into homes, robbing and murdering citizens. You decide to take your toddler to Canada for refuge. Canadian authorities take your child, lock him in a crowed cage without basic sanitary or medical care and then they send you back to the U.S…….This is what America has become.
The reality is American immigration has always been merit, family and humanitarian based. Unfortunately, Trump has made this border crisis far worse by prioritizing a policy of determent over care. A sadistic approach that eliminates the family and humanitarian components of our immigration policies by criminalizing hunger. The consequences are substandard facilities that warehouse migrant children without adequate healthcare and basic sanitation necessities like soap, blankets and beds. If child and family services in any state were to assess these facilities, they would immediately file for abuse and neglect protection and remove these children to a safe enviroment.
These concentration-like camps are designed for detention not long-term confinement. And for those republicans who argue that detention facilities are not concentration camps- because they’re not executing anyone; remember many of those who died in the concentration camps were not gassed or executed, they perished as a result of overcrowding, typhus and poor sanitary conditions.
When we don’t like what we perceive in others, the answer is not to restrict their opportunities for a better life based on where they come from or what transactional value they offer. Instead, it requires challenging ourselves to recognize our own plight flowing through the shared experiences of those who are different. Campaigning on a promise to Make America Great Again, raises the obvious question; for who are we making America great again? It certainly isn’t women, gays, African Americans or native Americans, because all of these groups were actually worse off when America was apparently great. But perhaps that’s exactly the point.
Discussion2 Comments
This border tragedy certainly defines who we as a nation have become. Forget the image and promise of Lady Liberty. It’s hard not to feel a kinship with the good folk of Germany who didn’t see what was coming and gradually became inured to the reality of what was. It CAN happen here, as long as we continue to devalue humans accept for their economic value and leaders regularly lie, fail to solve important problems and put us at risk at home and abroad. I have a hard time squaring these actions, or inactions, with the presence and dominant religious importance of Christianty in our society when acts like these don’t live up to the teachings. Citizens, become more vigilant and engaged!
Well said. If we have ever wondered how the Germans could’ve allowed the Nazis to come to power…… now we know. It happens incrementally. It reminds me of Edmund Burkes quote: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” We all have a part to play. To your point; be vigilant and engaged.