Off-Topic, But Important Nonetheless
Here’s a petition I just signed regarding the family pictured here. It has very little to do with environmental issues, though a great deal to do with figuring out who we are as a nation. If it doesn’t make you angry that this is happening in the U.S., you have a far more even temperament than I do.
Six years ago I was living in El Salvador when gangs began terrorizing my family. They killed my mother and my husband, then robbed and ransacked my house. They took everything – even the beds – and were threatening to kill me next. I had to escape.
I knew that the journey to the United States was very dangerous and I had a high chance of being raped or hurt along the way. But I would have died if I’d stayed in El Salvador. So I got a birth control injection and took my chances. A few years later, my 10 and 12 year-old daughters followed me, and somehow we all survived to make it to Boston.
But now the Obama administration is deporting families like ours back to El Salvador. And I’m afraid that we could be next.
Sign to ask President Obama to grant Temporary Protected Status to our family and other refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras who cannot safely return to their homes.
Our region has been experiencing devastating rates of violence – for years, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala have ranked among the countries with the highest rates of homicide, particularly of women and children. In 2015, 17,500 people were killed in a region that is geographically the same size as the state of Oregon. If my daughters and I have to go back, we will become part of that statistic.
My daughters and I could be deported back to our deaths.
President Obama has full legal power to take this action – in fact TPS was designed for this exact situation, when an immigrant population cannot safely return to their home country. He could grant my family protected status today.
But he won’t unless enough of us rise up and demand it. Will you sign for my family, and for so many others who are being sent back to violent and dangerous situations?
Ask President Obama to grant Temporary Protected Status to refugees fleeing violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
Craig,
Your attitude on this sort of thing is about the same as mine. As I see it, anyone with a sense of social justice would be very upset upon learning about this. It is partly because of that sort of thing that I am much more concerned with how people treat each other than with what they say they believe; I think that God would agree.
The selfishness of some people is astounding. Sometimes I feel that civilization is moving backward. However, advance usually is not continuous. Usually it is two steps forward and one step back. It looks as though we are now taking the one step back.
Craig,
This is a very difficult and contentious issue. No nation, not even one as wealthy as the US can continue to accept a massive, uncontrolled influx of migrants from less fortunate, or failed nations.
While it’s impossible not to feel great compassion for individual migrants it’s just not possible, or desirable to encourage uncontrolled illegal migration.
Trying to discuss this issue is very difficult. The plight of such people naturally arouses moral, emotional but often irrational sentiments. .
Uncontrolled migration harms the host nations while damaging the nations and societies the migrants are fleeing. It may sound harsh but at some stage solutions must be found to prevent this sort of wholesale migration that doesn’t involve surrendering border security.
All over the world migrants and genuine refugees are waiting in refugee camps. It’s estimated a potential 440 million people would migrate to one of 9 developed nations if possible.
Such an influx would not only overwhelm the government, economic and social services of those nations, but also destroy the local culture and identity of those nations. Uncontrolled migration could turn developed nations into chaotic failed states.
Idealistic solutions to social problems based on emotional morality, seldom achieve the desired results. Sometimes nations, like individuals, have to be cruel to be kind.
We have all seen the human misery caused by ill-conceived but moralistic social programs. Uneconomic land reform, public housing estates, (Projects in the US ) etc.
Societies require a degree of social cohesion. Uncontrolled migration leads to social unrest and intolerance from the existing populace who resent losing control of the culture, nation, and services they helped to build and seek to defend. The reservoir of tolerance and ability to successfully integrate an acceptable number of invited migrants, diminishes dramatically with uncontrolled migration.
Encouraging citizens to simply run away from failed states only perpetuates a further deterioration of society within those states creating a never ending problem.
It’s a cruel fact that societies, like individuals, must endure hardships and suffering to progress. Most human achievemnt is born from hardship and suffering.
It’s a bad parent who lacks the courage to teach children the responsibility of accepting and dealing with adverse consequences arising from their mistakes and misbehavior. Parents who shield children from the harsh realities of life, are not loving parents but irresponsible and selfish.
Despite it’s oil wealth, Venezuala is about to become another Latin American failed state. This is solely the responsibility of the people of that nation. It’s their country, they must learn the lessons and resolve their own errors.
The “people” must fix the problem. The time for blaming others is over. Venezuelans can’t simply run away, seek handouts, etc, it’s time for the people to take pride and endure the hardships while acquiring the responsibility and self discipline to ensure the mistakes are not repeated.
It’s time for the US to cease it’s ill conceived foreign adventures. Without US aid and encouragement, the bitter conflict in Syria could not be sustained. The Syrian government regiem may have been a lousy government, but it was no threat to the US or US allies.
While the US has every right to use military force to protect its own interests(along with the interests of its allies)this doesn’t justify the US interfering in the internal affairs of other nations.
The problem for the US in dealing with the heartrendingly sad story of this family, is that the US administration is trying to deal with consequences of past policy failures.
Every illegal migrant who successfully gets to stay in the US, (no matter how humanitarian) attracts a hundred more ! Every illegal migrant who gets to stay in the US, is a great advertisement for the lucrative business of people smuggling.
The only deterrent that works, is ensuring illegal migrants are expelled.
The are no “winners” in this saga of human misery. Nothing is fair, or morally pure, any decision must contain a degree of cruelty and melancholic consequences.
But a strong decision that achieves a resolution, no matter harsh, is better than no resolution due to weak and cowardly indecision with never ending tragic consequences.
I have heard the stories of many who at great peril have made an arduous trip to the US. The personal stories are compelling.
But there are some who counter with the “Rights” of the US to control its borders. There may be a certain validity, especially if there was no culpibility for these people having to leave their homes.
But I am also worried about rumors of exploitation by “American” companies who pay low wages to workers, essentially steal minerals and produce from those countries and leave behind corruption, governmental instability and poverty in the name of profits. To the extent that such rumors are true, we may owe something to these people who are forced from their homes by the resulting conditions. To shut our doors, wage war against them and continue exploitation because it is “legal” does not seem to represent “American” values.