The past few weeks , have given hope to this nation. Huge crowds, people registering to vote, people feeling positive. The news about Project 2025 (the more people find out, the more they oppose it) Well there is one issue , that we have allowed Trump and the Republicans to dominate and define : An issue almost as old as this country Immigration.
We are still being bombarded with messages about the so called “crisis at the border”, with “hordes of undesirables crossing over , threatening to destroy our way of live.
The same comments were made about Irish Immigrants before the Civil War, about Southern Italians in the late 1800’s and Jewish Immigrants during the turn of the century. Always a threat, “the other.
Why are so many people , willing to cross a desert in 100+ temperatures, facing murder and rape to come here? The gangs, Gangs that we support. Yes I said it We buy their drugs and we sell them weapons Yes, the Mexican and Latin American gangs buy their weapons from the USA. They have destroyed the communities of Mexico and Latin America,making life unbearable for the average person living there
It is an outdated notion that people from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are primarily looking for economic opportunity in the United States and, therefore, should wait in line for a visa. For people fleeing these countries, waiting for a visa can result in death, rape, or forcible recruitment into crime.
A recent report from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) states that these Northern Triangle countries are experiencing “unprecedented levels of violence outside a war zone” and that “citizens are murdered with impunity, kidnappings and extortion are daily occurrences. Non-state actors perpetuate insecurity and forcibly recruit individuals into their ranks, and use sexual violence as a tool of intimidation and control.”
These countries rank in the top 10 in the world for homicide. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, as leader of U.S. Southern Command in 2014, said that cartels and gangs, fueled by the U.S. demand for drugs, “have left near-broken societies in their wake.”
The U.S. government argues that people fleeing these places do not fit the technical definition of a refugee, so the U.S. is not obligated to offer them asylum. Yet they fit the spirit of agreements on refugees adopted after World War II. The U.N. refugee agency has concluded “that a significant percentage of those fleeing… may be in need of international protection, in line with the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.”
Here’s the link to the full citation www.brookings.edu/…
I hope Kamala Harris finds the courage to address this issue in an intelligent way, and stop the Trump/GOP hate machine
Stop saying the people running from the crime and chaos as “bad people” Were my grandparents “bad people” fleeing the chaos of Southern Italy after Garibaldi? Were my wife’ grandparents “bad people fleeing the programs and antisemitism of Eastern Europe
I guess you can see this issue is “personal to me” I remember being told by my parents , nobody wanted to be around “dagoes and “wops” My wife had students “feeling her head “ for horns.
My closest friends at the NYSDOH, was a woman , whose parents carried across the Rio Grande , who graduated Cornell University on full scholarship. Yes, we need to “flip the script”
Thank you
