As widely reported this past week, the Biden administration may resume the Trumpian “policy” of detaining migrant families who cross into the U.S. from Mexico.
Please join Public Citizen in urging President Biden not to resort to such an inhumane practice.
This is the most basic thing:
People fleeing oppression in other nations and seeking asylum in the United States deserve to be treated humanely. Like people. And with respect.
- There is no “refugee crisis” in the United States. If anything, there are too few immigrants joining our communities.
- There IS a racist, cynical, bad-faith, years-long campaign by right-wing politicians and media “personalities” to demonize immigrants. Millions of Americans have been convinced that certain immigrants — along with trans people, Black Lives Matter activists, and democracy itself — are to blame for everything they don’t like about their lives or about modern society.
- And there ARE real threats — including authoritarian persecution and violent gangs armed with weapons from the U.S. — that people are so desperate to escape they are willing to leave their home countries.
A line from a poem by Emma Lazarus has become synonymous with the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
In the same poem, Lazarus names the statue “Mother of Exiles.” Sadly, a more accurate description of how we treat some immigrants these days would be “exiler of mothers.”
Before the administration actually resumes the Trumpian practice of detaining families, let’s tell President Biden:
Beyond politics or policy, we have a duty to treat people with respect — especially people desperate enough to flee their homes. Warehousing migrant families is flat-out wrong. Do not resume this Trumpian practice.
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For progress,
- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen
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