We are a nation of immigrants, yet too many of us are anti-immigration. Once our ancestors settled in and the third generation became the norm, many of us discourage others from coming.
People immigrated to the US because of intolerable situations in their homelands: religious persecutions in England, famine in Ireland, the extermination of Jews in Germany, oppression in Russia, civil unrest in Central America, lack of living wages in Mexico, or killing rampages after the Vietnam War. Hundreds of thousands of people came through Ellis Island in the East, and Angel Island in the West. They came for a better life for their families or simple survival. My ancestors came from France, Ireland, and Hungary.
Once here, all was never as expected. Those who were already here feared the loss of jobs, they feared possible changes in norms and culture, and they feared fear itself. Irish-need-not –apply signs were prominently placed on factory walls and store windows. The KKK burned crosses on church lawns. Racial segregation was enforced. National and ethnic segregation was the norm in much of the country. We beckoned people to come and then treated them in unwelcoming ways.
The nation’s immigration policies of the last three or four decades resulted in millions of people coming into the country illegally. Some, in fact many, have lived in the US for over ten years; they got jobs, bought homes, educated their kids in public schools, and sent them to college. The parents are illegal but most of the kids are citizens or dream of citizenship in the only country they know.
Our history has its warts, to be sure. From the early days, starting with Jefferson, our national belief in Manifest Destiny was our excuse for taking over large swaths of the continent, starting with the Louisiana Purchase, going to war with Mexico to gain control of California and the Southwest, and attempts to annex large parts of the Oregon Territory claimed by the English. President Polk, in 1844, ran on a ticket of “54/40 or fight.” Our history is replete with government actions to displace people from their lands. We cannot be proud of how we treated Native Americans, many religious groups, and minorities in general. We have had several periods in our history when immigration was discouraged when immigrants were abused, and when we treated people badly. Today we are witnessing a new level of disdain with which we are not comfortable.
Our current government administration is enforcing a zero tolerance level of immigration that we have not seen in modern times. They do it arbitrarily and without compassion. Our government does not distinguish between refugees seeking asylum and those just crossing the border for personal advantage. All are treated as criminals. Instead of caring for families until their cases are adjudicated, children are yanked from their parents and then sent to detention facilities. Thousands of children, even babies who were breastfeeding, are sent to warehouse facilities run by Homeland Security. Even in our dark days when we sent Japanese citizens to internment camps in WWII, we did not separate children from their parents.
News organizations publish pictures of thousands of children incarcerated in chain-link fence cages, pictures of others sent to the heat of Arizona to live in tents, pictures of kids living on energy bars, and pictures of toddlers bewildered by their situation. We see pictures of small children in diapers in those cages with other children too young to care for them. Even with all the published pictures and the anecdotal stories that grow every day, the Director of Homeland Security denies the existence of a policy of family separation. The president says it’s a law created by the opposition party, denies the Department of Justice’s policy of zero tolerance; both are lies.
Is this the nation we want to be? Is this the nation we have become? The outrage is growing. People of principle are outraged. Religious leaders of all faiths are outraged. Former First Ladies are outraged. The general population is outraged. The United Nations Human Rights Council has decried our outrageous policies as inhumane.
Newspaper articles tell riveting stories of mothers deported without their children, of parents arrested while mowing the lawn in front of their homes, of children sent back to countries they do not know or to which they no longer have any connections.
Countries have a right and a duty to protect their borders, but they must do it humanely. Our country and its leadership, the executive branch and the legislative branch are shameful in their pursuit of these family-separation policies. It is time to stop this inhumane treatment of people. It is time to raise the cry for change. It may be a time to take to the streets in protest. We are sickened by the behavior of our government, and by the election fears of Congress who are complicit in these inhuman actions.
What will we tell our grandchildren and great-grandchildren that we did while our country tore children from their mothers and put them in concentration camps?
