It is frustrating to attempt to gauge the extent of the virtue of human empathy in a Nation, entirely populated by immigrants and their progeny, but, nevertheless, one in which the acceptability of new applicants for citizenship from outside the borders of the United States, eternally, continues to be a hotly contested issue.
One can contrast, the Obama administration’s humane extension of safe asylum to refugee families, in flight from danger, as well as the acceptance of those immigrants, essentially, seeking a better life, with the xenophobic and prohibitive inclination of the Trump Administration, which described, albeit, sight unseen, caravans of refugees as criminals and prostitutes, and promised his bigoted, un-American, followers the Medieval, tactic of a great walled, prohibitive, barrier across the southern border.
Historically, this American Nation, (to repeat, that is entirely, populated by immigrants and their descendants) had, for many years, totally banned the immigration of Chinese and other Asian immigrants. In 1939 the ship, “St. Louis,” carrying more than nine-hundred Jews, fleeing for their very lives from Nazi Germany, was, summarily, turned back, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to predictably be murdered, due to the then perceived American public sentiment concerning Jews.
In the empathically, passionate words of the brilliant poet, Emma Lazarus (an advocate for Russian Jews, fleeing the Russian Czar) which are inscribed on our welcoming, Statue of Liberty “…Give me your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be free…Send them here, the tempest [tossed] to me…”
Racism and xenophobia (and, in our view, ignorant, selfishness) on the part of many Americans underlay their opposition to a policy of liberality, for those, also wishing to avail themselves of the desirable freedom and opportunities enjoyed by Americans in the United States. Some opponents of liberal immigration, tactically, disguise their feelings of bigotry behind the faux assertion that liberal immigration would result in the loss of jobs. Yet, reportedly, employers state that the substantial shortage of workers is preventing them from filling millions of jobs, and, further, that such shortfall is a key factor in our inflation.
Immigrant detainees are held for months, even years, in detention centers while being processed. Human Rights Watch reports that such detainees are held in prisons and jails and are subjected to inhumane living conditions, including inadequate and poor nourishment, lack of adequate clothing and in an overcrowded, environment. Correction officers often lack the language skills necessary to meet the specific needs of the immigrant detainees. This contributes, as reported, to a range of health issues, including, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Notably, it has been reported to, empirically, impose collateral harm well beyond the detainees, themselves.
As previously undertaken, we would propose an empathic, less “penal” and more humanistic, way to manage the affairs of the migrant, during his prolonged waiting period, pending the finalization of the process of immigration. Immigrants, clearly, are not convicted criminals and should not be obliged to “serve time” in a penal lock-up, or its somber equivalent, pending their processing.
We would earnestly and empathically, propose the furnishing (building?) of basic, but utilitarian, living spaces for the immigrant, and, as relevant, his family, pending the completion and determination of his application for entrance to the United States.
Individual residences in the form of apartment buildings or, perhaps, cottages, might be constructed, by the Federal or State government, conceivably, with assistance by instructed immigrants, consisting of modest, but healthy and acceptably comfortable, living spaces with the usual amenities. These temporary, but livable, residential areas could also beneficially, accommodate, government offices for processing, clinics, schoolrooms (English language, American folkways and traditions, etc.) living and children’s play centers. If successful these venues might be used for other purposes, viz. trade schools, library, and infirmaries.
Our prosperous Nation has a surfeit of available living space for immigrant families who wish to follow in the footsteps of its forebears, to whom we all owe our American heritage and life. A similar opportunity, in fairness and human morality, ought to be available to other human beings; moreover, who do not, reasonably, deserve to be treated as undesirable miscreants.
-p.
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