{"id":9293,"date":"2014-08-08T14:02:44","date_gmt":"2014-08-08T21:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=9293"},"modified":"2014-08-11T12:37:45","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T19:37:45","slug":"open-space-so-called-border-crisis-raises-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2014\/08\/08\/open-space-so-called-border-crisis-raises-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Space<\/em>: So-called border crisis raises questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the past few weeks, the US has been facing what has been called a \u201cborder crisis.\u201d What\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cLa Bestia,\u201d the gigantic freight train on which Central American immigrants are illegally taken through the country by so-called \u201ccoyotes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Busloads of kids are showing up at the border, some with their single moms and some on their own. And, in true \u2018Murica style, they have been confronted by angry, screaming Tea-Partiers waving \u201cSpeak English Dammit\u201d signs and rocking \u201cTake America Back\u201d T-shirts.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t go into the theoretical, airy-fairy conceptual arguments about the validity of a politically constructed line in the sand we call a \u201cborder.\u201d The fact is we have borders in the world, and crossing one illegally is indeed a crime.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019m sure the verse must have gone, \u201cAnd 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 you\u00c9 oh, or they don\u2019t speak English.\u201d<\/p>\n

The kind of hardline response that has been stirred up in the far-right \u201cNobama\u201d crowd might seem to be the common-sense response, but it doesn\u2019t line up with truly \u201cbringing America back.\u201d (And again, let\u2019s ignore the always-obvious irony that any non-indigenous people in the US were, in fact, immigrants.)<\/p>\n

One need look no further than the Statue of Liberty, that oh-so-famous beacon of everything American. Printed on its pedestal is \u201cThe New Colossus,\u201d an 1883 poem by American poet Emma Lazarus, offering America as a place for the \u201ctired, poor… huddled masses yearning to breathe free.\u201d If that doesn\u2019t perfectly describe the desperate people I have seen in photos showing up at the border, I don\u2019t know what does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the past few weeks, the US has been facing what has been called a \u201cborder crisis.\u201d What\u2019s 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. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-views","category-august-14-2014"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9293"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9350,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9293\/revisions\/9350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}