When It Comes To Immigration & Politics, We Should Be Talking About Our Humanity
US governors are lying to humans, hauling them to other states, and leaving them there with no heads-up and no preparations for food and shelter. Right-wing pundits and other Republicans are advocating for this, cheering it on, and pushing for more.
That’s all extremely dangerous. Here’s what we can do: we can call it out. We can talk about it with the people we know; even when it’s uncomfortable.
We’re on a precipice. Yes, we’ve been on this precipice for a while - maybe years. Plus we might stay here for a while - maybe years. But better to stay on that precipice holding the line than to fall into an abyss of hate and tyranny.
So: it’s important to hold the line. That line is morality. It’s our humanity. It’s our freaking humanity.
Like… are we going to keep our humanity?
Or are we going to allow a bunch of hateful, intolerant, bigoted, power-hungry bullies take it away? Because that’s what they’re doing. They’re making progress gaining power, too, to do just that; at every level. The rest of us appear to be for the most part watching in shock - although there’s definitely some outcry here and there.
It makes sense that it’s hard to speak up, and hard to know when and where to do the speaking out.
How about… anywhere?
How about… get a group of people together and figure out how to raise a fuss? I’m not even kidding.
The hate up in this country threatens to push us over the edge. Are we seriously just going to watch as humans - including children - are stuffed onto buses and planes and sent wherever, just willy-nilly? Dumped off in towns and cities with no warning, and no plans for services?
It’s dangerous. It’s unacceptable. It’s unkind. It’s sadistic.
This is not how we should treat humans.
Certain right-wing pundits are pushing for moving hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers away from border communities. Thousands of humans have already been moved in this way out of Texas and Florida to at least New York, Massachusetts, and Washington, DC… and maybe elsewhere.
Further, this looks a lot like human trafficking, and/or kidnapping, and/or reckless treatment, endangerment, or movement of minors. It also appears that false statements may be being made to convince the people who are being moved to board the buses or airplanes being used to move them.
These US governors are throwing people away; casting them aside as “somebody else's problem." And the they’re crowing about it. Republican governors, pundits, and supporters are actually proud of this, celebrating it, and laughing about it. “Now they’re your problem,” they say in the air to the hypothetical governments and people of the supposedly “blue” states where humans have been so casually disposed of.
This isn’t new this week, but for whatever reason the media finally realized they could give it some attention. Perhaps the chartered forced-migration of people from Florida to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts is what pushed the media into covering this in a serious way. Hard to tell.
But we can keep it on the radar by pushing for more coverage, and by finding ways to get more coverage. By writing letters to the editor. By pressuring TV and radio stations to cover local angles, and local support.
If you’re fired up, you can push the issue by talking with your own local governments, churches, nonprofits, and businesses about what your community might do to help volunteer to help migrant people of all types - whether they fled from Ukraine, whether they are asylum-seekers from Central or South America, or whether they are simply humans who need help.
Does your community have a plan? Do you need to make one? How can you start? How can you raise awareness about this in the politics happening where you live right now?
It’s worth talking about, and soon. We need to champion our humanity. It will help us keep it.
We need to put our values front and center. It’s time for that.
One of the other things that’s happening is that there are apparently conversations happening within and between the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the White House on considering strategies to move asylum-seekers out of southern border communities to other communities in the US. Some of the reporting indicates pressure to move folks to communities near the Canadian border, which seems to be an idea along the same lines as those of the Republican governors in these southern states - treating people as a problem to be foisted on someone else.
Is that what the US government would choose to do? I hope not. It’s certainly something we could be talking about at political events as people are running for election this fall.
Yet another reason why it’s as good of a time as any to have a talk about immigration.
With that, it’s as good a time as any to talk about our humanity, and our values.
It’s a good time to talk about how we can prioritize taking care of humans, and also getting serious about longer-term strategies to deal with mass migration.
People are not to be thrown about and moved without their consent. That’s not what we’re supposed to be doing up in this country. We need to defend that.
We should be looking after people, and caring how they live.
Finally, mass migration from Central and South America are likely to persist and in fact increase significantly due to political instability, due to climate change, and due to anticipated destabilization due to climate change.
Because of what these southern US governors are doing and also because of discussions inside Homeland Security, the pundit class is talking about short-term solutions the Biden Administration "should be" looking at to move asylum seekers away from border communities. This isn’t a short-term election issue, and we can say that part too.
Whatever moves we make, we would be wiser to think about long-term mass migration strategies and how we're going to deal with them in the United states.
It shouldn't be about whatever is expedient or looks good for the election.
It should be a longer term discussion about how we take care of humans who run here because of crisis.
What kind of country do we want to be, anyway?
We can do so much better.
We get there by working on it.
The Republicans have capitalized on a narrative that "the Mexicans" are storming the border--intent on taking away *your* job! They're violent! They bring drugs into the country! They commit crimes! We gotta stop 'em! And people have bought into it .
In reality, the situation at the border is much more complex. But sound bites rule. So let the liberals deal with the problem that *they* refuse to address. And of course the "problem" is real people, with complex stories and complex needs. Too bad.
I think DeSantis' actions will backfire. Abbott and Ducey got away with bussing people to New York, Chicago and DC. Those cities had time to prepare for the busses and put services in place to assist the people. There was media attention, but probably because the arrival of the busses was anticipated and the cities (and nonprofits) responded, there wasn't a huge outcry. Perhaps there should have been... But DeSantis flew the migrants to Martha's Vineyard, without any notification. The good people of the Vineyard responded with assistance and compassion. And I think many people who want to see more controls at the border will see through DeSantis' vile attempt to "own the libs"--precisely because it was so callous. Well, I HOPE they will.
There are conflicting reports about how much the migrants were informed about what was happening. Some apparently were told they were going to New York City, others to Boston, some had no idea where they were headed. Clearly, all were lied to--either overtly or by inference. The cynics say that, in addition to dropping the migrants into a liberal bastion, DeSantis' real aim was to complicate their ability to make asylum hearings--which would increase the probability of their deportation.
It's an ugly, ugly situation--to which ordinary people have proved that we want to find equitable solutions that support the migrants and honor our nation's promise of being a place where those who are fleeing violence from their own governments can seek refuge. The question is whether we have the wherewithal to withstand the vile tactics of the Republicans who view the migrants as undeserving of even the opportunity to state their case, much less to being welcomed as people seeking better lives for themselves and their children.
It's even worse because apparently the people sending folks to Martha's Vineyard did things that directly sabotaged their ability to get to needed immigration appointments. These people are asylum seekers, here legally and just trying to do the right things to get through the process, which is hard enough without this sort of interference.