Immigration
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We have been and continue to be inundated about the activities and goals of the Trump Administration. One of the most explosive attempts at exclusion is the Executive Order regarding immigrants and refugees. This month’s blog will focus on some factual information about the Order, the judicial decision of the 9th circuit court along with objective descriptions about and brief facts regarding the above two groups.
Following this, I will offer alternative views related to the unconstitutional position of the President of the United States. Finally, the conclusion will challenge us as citizens and people of faith to take positions and speak publicly in defense of our brothers and sisters in the global community.
“. . . the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has unanimously. . .ruled for the U.S. to remain open to refugees and visa holders from seven Muslim-majority countries while the Trump administration fights to reinstate a travel ban in the name of national security.
The San Francisco-based appeals court . . . denied the government’s request to close the doors after days of public debate over President Donald Trump’s attacks on the judicial system and a rush of fearful immigrants. The ruling increases the likelihood that the administration will ask the Supreme Court to step into a case that’s the biggest test of Trump’s executive power yet. Tyler Durden, 2/10/17, Zero Hedge
Immediate and widespread resistance rose up against Trump’s order.
The order suspends for four months resettlement of refugees and asylum seekers, including those already with visas and bars refugees from Syria from entering the United States indefinitely. (NCR, p.6, 2/10-23/17)
President Trump’s refusal to accept Syrian refugees for resettlement in the U.S. may further embolden Europe’s anti-migrant settlement, prolonging the pain for families who want nothing more than to get started on their new lives.
Immigrants are subject to the laws of their adopted country. They may only come if they have work or a place to live. They are usually driven by economic factors, or they want to be close to family. Refugees are forced to relocate for reasons such as fear of war, religious or political persecution.
A sampling of United Nations’ stats related to the above: women outnumber men, children 11 years old and younger, male and female, account for 38.5% of refugees (At an age when most kids need supervision to do their homework, hundreds of thousands of minors are crossing continents alone.) New Yorker Magazine, 2/21/17).
Syrians represent 23% of the 57,350 total refugees accepted by U.S. as of Aug. 31.
Systemic analysis IS coming from many directions. I believe a particularly astute observation comes from Yascha Mounk, co-founder of a new watchdog group called After Trump and a lecturer on government at Harvard: “Most people are thinking about trump as a policy problem; . . . But I think Trump is also potentially an authoritarian threat to the survival of liberal democracy. . . We need to build a new vision of how liberalism can improve people’s lives. . . It’s going to require a collective effort of activists and citizens and elites on several continents.”
(Containing Trump, Jonathan Rauch, pp 61-65, THE ATLANTIC, 3/17)
I conclude with a quote from a Catholic Bishop who challenges us to stand up, be visible and be heard as People of Faith, as Americans and as Global Citizens!
“President Trump was the candidate of disruption. He was the disrupter, he said. Well now, we must all become disrupters. We must disrupt those who would seek to send troops into our streets to deport the undocumented, to rip mothers and fathers from their families. We must disrupt those who portray refugees as enemies rather than our brothers and sisters in terrible need. We must disrupt those who train us to see Muslim men and women and children as sources of fear rather than as children of God. We must disrupt those who seek to rob our medical care, especially from the poor. We must disrupt those who would take even food stamps and nutrition assistance from the mouths of children.”
(Bishop of San ego, Robert McElroy, 2/19/17, Millennial Newsletter)
Supporting the above words of Bishop McElroy demonstrations, conferences, numerous articles, and books are increasing in attempts to further raise awareness and motivate the ‘old’ activists along with the millennials to pursue justice and a more inclusive community. It’s part of our roots and DNA!
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Emma Lazurus, 1883