Jews not welcome

By Debra Bellman, Grey Eagle

Our nation’s current law says we will accept and welcome asylum seekers and refugees from other countries, under specified circumstances, and after a vetting process.  It is tradition in many cultures worldwide to welcome the refugee and the stranger in need.  Alternatively, in some places, in some times, outsiders are shunned.  Traditional Christian values, Jewish values, and Muslim values all say to welcome and assist the stranger and those in need, as do Humanists.  It seems likely to me that most well-established religions would teach the same.  

The U.S. was founded on the idea of accepting the immigrant, although how we treat them, once here, has ranged widely.  The American economy operates decidedly differently than pre-colonial economies.  We have an economy begun and carried out by and large by immigrants.  Currently, as our population ages, we are in need of more young workers to pay into Social Security if we want to keep the system operating as we expect it to.  

Every worker receiving a paycheck has taxes and Social Security taken out of their pay.  Workers with illegal status, using false Social Security numbers, pay in like everyone else, but will never get tax refunds, or get Social Security benefits for their efforts.  As far back as President Reagan, and probably before, both Republicans and Democrats have wanted to create a pathway to citizenship for illegal U.S. residents who have set roots here, establishing families and careers.  

Anne Marie Frank - 1940
Thanks to Wikipedia

Over time, U.S. immigration laws have varied.  We have experimented with having quotas for certain groups of people.  Prior to, and during World War II, our restrictive immigration policy made it impossible for Anne Frank’s family and thousands of other Jewish families to immigrate to the U.S.  We issued fewer than 30,000 VISAs annually, requiring several years, and huge amounts of paperwork, including affidavits from friends or family in the U.S., before a family was affirmed or denied.  Otto Frank started the process in 1938.  He tried again in 1941 after a German bombardment destroyed the papers from his first attempt.  Anne died in February or March of 1945 at age 15, in Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in Germany, shortly before Allies freed the camp.  Of her family, only her father Otto survived.  

Abraham called upon people to welcome the stranger.  Jews often base their sympathy for refugees on Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt.  Started in 1881 to assist Jews fleeing the pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe, one U.S. non-profit group works today with our federal government to help settle refugees of any kind.  Thinking of the caravan of Central American asylum seekers traveling to his border as “hostile invaders”, and thinking this largely Jewish non-profit group was bringing such people into his country, one White Nationalist American, on October 27, 2018, invaded the peace of a Jewish Synagogue in Pittsburg and gunned down eleven elderly worshipers, the oldest being Rose Mallinger, age 97.

Upon receiving orders for National Guard troops to go to our Southern border to protect us from Central Americans, our military has assessed the danger to Americans as negligible.  They believe the caravan of asylum-seekers are just that, with few criminals attached and no terrorists.  One concern is that anti-immigration vigilante groups will steal the soldier’s gear.  Another concern is that troops will not be where they should be if needed to actually protect U.S. security.   Even the people who relish a show that Central American refugees are unwelcome in the U.S., admit that the cost of this particular show to U.S. taxpayers, estimated to be $200 million, is exorbitant.

People traveling to our border in a caravan, for their own safety, is not a new thing.  Thousands of would-be migrants lie in mass graves in Mexico, killed by drug cartels.  Others have been trafficked.  And for many, families somewhere have paid their ransoms.  A caravan is a good bet for surviving the trip.  The number of those on their way is not a big deal in itself.  The big deal is that they will all arrive at once.  Our president complains that the U.S. is not prepared to process their applications.  As my mother would say, “You’ve known for weeks when this paper is due.  Why did you wait until the last minute?”  Why aren’t we prepared to provide due process to these worn out people in a timely and humane way, as is indicated by our laws and our values?

Asylum seekers plan to present themselves legally at designated entry points.  Some fellow travelers are hoping to return to families and lives in the U.S. after being deported.  Technically, they are criminals, and so they will try to enter another way.  We have 20,000 border control agents trained to stop them.

About a month ago, one contingent of ICE agents signed a letter asking that their efforts be focused back on stopping real criminals, the dangerous ones, rather than on separating families.

The $100 million allocated by the U.S. for violence deterrence in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala is money well spent, and does help.  We spend much, much more at our border and on detention centers.  Our recent inhumane practices have proved not to be a deterrent to people who are desperate.  Upping the inhumaneness is not only inhumane.  It’s illogical.

The idea that Central Americans must be stopped because they are coming here to vote is revealing of the person with the idea, but not of reality.  In areas where gangs reign, small business owners go out of business when they can’t afford to pay the “war tax” levied by the gangs.  Girls are threatened with death, or their family’s deaths, if they do not become a sex slave to a gang member.  Boys are threatened in the same way if they do not join a gang.   Most murders go unsolved.  Activists have resorted to putting witnesses into black burkas, and leading them into closets where their voices are distorted as they testify in court, in order to protect their lives.  Anti-corruption groups started by brave activists have been shut down by corrupt governments.  People are coming here in hopes to survive and to lead livable lives.

More outside funding is needed for the activists on the ground who are working to deter violence in the worst areas.  They are creative and motivated and very often successful.  If things are left to get worse, more people will choose to leave.

For many people in the U.S., skin color, or a different religion, is what motivates them to see ordinary, decent people as bad people to be feared.  Some of us assume new residents will be a drain on our economy.  Others believe that people seeking freedom, safety, and equal opportunity, will refresh our democratic values as well as our economy.  And still others of us just want to help people who are in need of help.   

If you don’t want Central Americans to come here, ask your government to deal with the root cause of why they leave.  If you care about people in general, ask your government to help ameliorate the root cause of their torment, and not to add to it.

Debra Bellman, Grey Eagle