In the past few weeks, the US has been facing what has been called a “border crisis.” What’s essentially happening is that information on US immigration reform is being lost in translation, and citizens of poverty-stricken Latin American nations are sending their children north in hopes that they will receive papers upon crossing the border.
The whole mess has caused a fury, not only in the US, but also in Mexico, whose government has finally agreed that they should maybe start regulating “La Bestia,” the gigantic freight train on which Central American immigrants are illegally taken through the country by so-called “coyotes.”
Busloads of kids are showing up at the border, some with their single moms and some on their own. And, in true ‘Murica style, they have been confronted by angry, screaming Tea-Partiers waving “Speak English Dammit” signs and rocking “Take America Back” T-shirts.
I won’t go into the theoretical, airy-fairy conceptual arguments about the validity of a politically constructed line in the sand we call a “border.” The fact is we have borders in the world, and crossing one illegally is indeed a crime.
But there are times when one must overlook what is politically the best option and search for what is morally the best. If the US claims itself to be the beacon of hope, liberty, and opportunity, its government and citizenry must place themselves in the shoes of the frightened immigrant kids and rethink their stance.
Last time I checked, the Bible that so many Tea Party protestors at the border claim to stand behind mentions nothing about turning people away if it will cost government money. I’m sure the verse must have gone, “And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all… unless it will cost a lot, or they are a different colour than youÉ oh, or they don’t speak English.”
The kind of hardline response that has been stirred up in the far-right “Nobama” crowd might seem to be the common-sense response, but it doesn’t line up with truly “bringing America back.” (And again, let’s ignore the always-obvious irony that any non-indigenous people in the US were, in fact, immigrants.)
One need look no further than the Statue of Liberty, that oh-so-famous beacon of everything American. Printed on its pedestal is “The New Colossus,” an 1883 poem by American poet Emma Lazarus, offering America as a place for the “tired, poor… huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” If that doesn’t perfectly describe the desperate people I have seen in photos showing up at the border, I don’t know what does.