There is a knock on your door and you open it to discover a
7 year old child alone, cold, hungry and in shock. What do you do?
Do you slam the door?...tell her to go away?...sic your dog on
her?...call the National Guard? Or
do you invite her in and wrap her in a blanket, give her some food and
drink? Do you make her feel safe
while trying to figure out where she came from? You do call the police and social services in the hope they
can find her family and knowing she will be kept warm and protected. Questions about how she got to your
door and why she is alone and where she came from would all be secondary to
meeting her immediate needs.
Right?
It’s baffling to me how a humanitarian crisis has morphed into an
existential threat to our nation's security, and yet it is what is happening
since thousands of unaccompanied minor children began washing up on the shores
of this great country seeking asylum.
The rhetoric and hyperbole from regressives borders on the maniacal. One Texas congressman likens the
children to an invading army while invoking images of the invasion of Normandy
on D-Day and calls on the state's governor to use all force, including
warships, to stem this human tide.
Another southern member of Congress claims the children are carrying the
Ebola virus and could cause an American pandemic. Regressive talk radio talks in dystopian terms of the end of
all our borders and the collapse of American culture if these children are not
stopped and force used to deter any future attempts to enter this nation. Our infrastructure and institutions are
on the verge of imploding due to this children's crusade.
Huh? These flights of fancy
and fact-less frenzy would be the stuff of great satire were it not for the
serious crisis occurring and the fact some Americans are buying into this
nightmare scenario. The conspiracy
theories are flying fast and furious.
These children are coming here at President Obama's behest to become a
new voting block for the Democratic Party. (considering the average age is about 9-11, those elections
they will tilt Obama's way would appear to be quite a few years hence) This human tidal wave is a result of a
2012 law signed by Obama slowing the deportation of some children by this
nation. (in reality it is a 2008
law signed by George W. Bush which mandates that undocumented children be
protected and placed with any family which can be found in this country) This crisis is a result of borders
which are not secure and they are not secure because Obama wants more and more
new immigrants to bolster his political power. (under this president, the budget for the Border Patrol has
increased dramatically to its highest level ever and there are more border patrol
agents now than at any time in history and the numbers continues to climb) There is even talk by the likes of
Sarah Palin and others that this is an impeachable offense because Obama is
deliberately undermining the strength and security of the nation by encouraging
or ignoring all these children at our border.
When the real facts are examined, the reason for this mass movement of
children is readily apparent. The
highest percentage of children are coming from nations like Honduras, El
Salvador and Guatemala. These also
happen to be the most violent and unstable nations in Central America. The United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees says Honduras has the highest murder rate in the entire
world. Crime and mayhem from drug
gangs and criminal wars, along with crushing poverty, has trapped these
children and their families in the middle of it all. (as proof look at a nation like Nicaragua which has a low
homicide rate and rate of violence...very few of the children appearing at our
borders are from there or from other more stable and less violent nations in
the area)
Texas governor Rick Perry wants to put the National Guard (with fixed
bayonet's?) on the Texas border.
Under questioning on Fox News of all places, Perry had to admit the
Guard could not arrest anyone or hold these children and it was unlikely they
were going to shoot them (right?) so what good would they do? Perry said they could scare the kids
and send a message back to their homes so no more will venture forth. I'm sorry? These unaccompanied minors, some as young as three years
old, have trekked over thousands of miles of mountains and deserts, against all
odds, to escape abuse and violence, but the sight of some soldiers is going to
frighten them enough to get them to turn back or not to leave in the first place?
The U.S. has facilities to handle about 8,000 children and families at
any given time. There are not
enough camps and bases and old prisons to hold them all right now. There are not enough medical personnel
to evaluate them for illness and disease and not enough food and beds. Obama is asking for billions to remedy
this, but regressives say it's too much money and are refusing to pass his
request. (Perry, along with El
Rushbo have shouted about a looming health crisis because these children haven't
been vaccinated against things like measles and chicken pox. Ironically, because of free health
care, the children from Guatemala are more likely to be vaccinated than
children in Texas)
Perhaps the most disturbing image among all the news footage, more
disturbing than shoeless, hungry, emaciated children begging for help while
some of their companions lie dead on the desert floor, is the picture of crowds
of angry white Americans attacking buses carrying the children, screaming at
them and refusing to allow them to be sheltered in their communities. (this is happening all over the nation
from California to Michigan) What
is it they are so angry about?
What threat do these children represent? Who have they offended by risking their lives to escape
violence, abuse and poverty?
All of these children need to be kept safe, warm, fed and clothed. They then need to be evaluated to see
if they have family in this country and why they fled and what dangers they
would face if repatriated back to their homes. It is not going to be quick or clean but it is the right
moral choice to make in a "Christian" nation.
The "invasion" of these children shows the real moral fault
lines in this nation and again they fall along racial and economic concerns. These are the same racial and economic
concerns which created the No Nothing Party, the Klan, the Chinese Exclusion
Acts, Japanese internment camps and the signs saying" no Irish need
apply". Lady Liberty carries
a torch to light the way for those children. Who among you wants to snuff that out?
No surprise that political right has made this tragic situation a rallying point for their hateful agenda.
ReplyDeleteHope you are doing OK down there in Lompoc, maybe you'll run across my buddy from Berkeley who is a noob just sent their for a charge sort of like yours.
Have missed your very intelligent thoughts and great shows on the radio. Keep the faith!
Jim
If Nicaragua is so great, why aren't the children going there? Isn't it closer? Even Panama is closer. If "one" child comes to your door, one can help, but when 10.000 or 20,000 shows up, then what? There are no simple answers to the problems mankind makes. Question EVERYTHING until the real truth comes out. The mayor of Chicago wants more of them to go to Chicago. Why? When he can't solve the problems Chicago has now. Isn't the reason the children came here to escape violence, drugs, and killings? I would love to work on this problem, but wait, I have to go on a six week vacation. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is why we need your voice, Bernie....the analogy of the child at your door is perfect. We have truly lost our way.
ReplyDeleteSorry, Bernie, but you're wrong on this one all the way across the board, starting with your opening scenario. The majority of "children" crossing the border illegally are young men between the ages of 14 and 17 and many of them have been helped across by the drug cartels in exchange for promising to work for those cartels once they are safely in the US. So, the real question should be: what would you do if a teenager who was a member of a violent gang knocked on your door and asked to come in? Of course, that question is likely to generate a different response. Anyone who is sane would lock their door and call the police.
ReplyDeleteSadly, people on the border have no policee to call because the Obama Administration is asking the US Border Patrol to not only help these would-be criminals into the country, but also to disperse them throughout, exposing both our border and interior to increased criminal activity.
Remember the funeral Michelle Obama attended in Chicago for the young African American high school honors student who had been killed when she happened to be in the wrong place when a inter-gang shootout took place? Did you know that the particpants in that shootout were teenage illegal alien members of waring drug cartels? The media, eager to support the myth that illegal aliens are all here to better themselves forgot to mention that. Interestingly, that fact came out in a PBS documentary about gang violence in Chicago.
As for the younger children who are entering the country, would it not be more humane to ship them right back to their parents or caregivers in their home countries than to keep them here in the unsanitary conditions that we see in the detention facilities or even to disperse them to other places within the US? You are advocating the continued use of these children as pawns of their families, their governments and the Obama Administration in their efforts to change our culture by what is, inessence, an invasion.
If we want to make decisions about immigration based on compassion, we should also take into consideration what is most compassionate for us to do for our own people, especially our poor and under privileged. Once these children gain legal status, they are able to bring in entire extended families. These families don't speak English and the adults are largely unskilled. We don't hav enough jobs for our own unskilled people, let alone these illegals and, as technology becomes more advanced, we will have fewer such jobs each year. As such, the presence of these "immigrants" will expand or poor and dependent classes.
Further, educating these children, in their langauge as is required by law, will take resources away from our own children. In order for the US to compete in the modern world, we will need more children with extensive education in math and science, among other disciplines. Where I live, we are having to cut courses in these to help educate the illegal children, many of whom require special education, in addition to being educated in their own language. Thus, American children, who have played by the rules, and America in general, is being cheated out of a quality education by people who don't belong here and who contribute nothing to the system.
In addition, these children are often sick and carry disease to which our children have no immunity-- the recent spread throughout the country of the "mysterious" respiratory sickness among children is proof of this. Thererfore, perhaps another question should be asked of your readers (and of you): if a sick, lice-infested child were to show up in your child's school, would you be ok with that? I wonder; then again, it's not your readers who are facing this situation, but, again, the poor and uneducated in our society about whom you claim to care so much.
This comment is why we need you back Bernie. Ignorance and false rumors at its best
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