I didn’t see any United States representative at the high-level meeting on the Global Compact on Migration at last week’s United Nations meetings, and the seat for the U.S. representative at the “High Level Side Event on The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A Prevention Tool to Achieve Peace and Sustainable Development,” marking the 70th anniversary of the declaration, was left empty.
This week, we learn that 1,364 children were awakened in the dead of night, without any notice “so they would be less likely to try to run away”, loaded onto buses and marched like prisoners to a tent city in the Texas desert, where they will not have access to schooling or legal counsel.
In a just world, those who issued such orders and those carrying them out would be prosecuted for child abuse and human rights violations.
That there are some 13,000 children effectively imprisoned – the numbers swelling because the adults that might otherwise come to sponsor and care for them are too afraid of being swept up and deported themselves.
There are still hundreds of children who were separated from their parents, three under the age of five.
We hear of legal immigrants now being too afraid of applying for public services – a rent voucher, food stamps- for fear they will be barred from the country or prevented from getting permanent resident status.
We hear of hundreds of thousands of people who have lived in the U.S. legally for decades, who have children who are American citizens, now being given notice their legal status revoked and they will be deported with or without their children (and what if their American children are rejected by the country they are sent to?).
The Trump administration has cut the number of refugees it will accept this year in half, to a record low of 30,000.
Trump sidesteps the issue entirely by conflating refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants, with illegal immigration, criminal activity and violence, as he did in his speech to the UN General Assembly.
“Only by upholding national borders, destroying criminal gangs, can we break this cycle and establish a real foundation for prosperity,” Trump told the General Assembly, in declaring that the US will not participate in the Global Compact for Migration.
You know what will create gangs and violence? The permanent psychological scars these children will develop. Remember: MS-13 was incubated on the streets of Los Angeles not Honduras (No. 46 on the list of most dangerous countries; U.S. is No. 43).
The fact that the reason there are so many “illegal” immigrants in the U.S. is because there has been no rational “legal” system in place since Reagan was in power is somehow completely left off out of the discussion.
There are ways to solve the problem, which Obama had tried to do by passing Comprehensive Immigration Reform in the Senate (only to die in the House), then out of desperation, issuing his DREAMer policy and a similar policy for parents of American children.
“Migration is a historic and multifaceted phenomenon involving humanitarian, human rights and demographic issues.,” UN Secretary General António Guterres’ stated at the migration event. “It has deep economic, environmental and political implications. ..Unfortunately, it is also an issue that has often been misrepresented and exploited for political gain. Unregulated, unmanaged migration has created false and negative perceptions of migrants that feed into a narrative of xenophobia, intolerance and racism….
“The Global Compact for Migration emphasizes that collaboration is fundamental to addressing human mobility. It recognizes that while every sovereign state has the prerogative to govern its borders, our interdependent world demands solutions that are anchored in cooperation and our pursuit of the common good.”
Immigration is important for economic growth and vitality, particularly at a time of full employment, when businesses are suffering for the lack of workers. Ninety-nine percent of America was settled by immigrants or are the spawn of immigrants, as many as 40 percent of American Nobel laureates in the sciences were immigrants and 20 percent of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are immigrants.
But immigration is crucial for the betterment of humanity and civilization. Diversity – of the gene pool, let alone ideas and culture – is a healthy thing for human survival.
This is another crucial reason why Democrats need to take control of Congress: to force accountability and restore rationality to our policies on immigration, migration and refugees.
Just as zipcode shouldn’t preordain a person’s career success (Supreme Court!) or access to health care, where you are born should not doom your prospects for a fulfilling life.
The Republicans have made clear that they have no such interest in reestablishing law or pursuing human rights or civil rights. Vote them out before the United States becomes an outlaw nation.
