Inhumanity of policies
on immigration obvious
I’ve begun this letter many times, but I haven’t been able to finish it. I think about our country imprisoning people, including children, in concentration camps and I can’t write because my heart breaks.
In one version of the letter, I wrote about my dad’s parents, Holocaust refugees who came here seeking asylum like the refugees today arriving on our southern border. Others’ relatives weren’t allowed into the U.S. — they died at the hands of the Nazis.
In another version, I stated facts: Crossing the border is a misdemeanor, not a felony, and seeking asylum is entirely legal. Immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born citizens. Immigration is good for the economy. Immigrants pay more in taxes than they tend to get in benefits. Latino immigrants assimilate at the same rates as Italian and Eastern European immigrants did a century ago.
I wrote about the inhumanity of President Trump’s family separation policy. It was revealed Monday that it has continued despite the orders of a federal judge, and our government admits its poor record-keeping led to losing track of children and not being able to reunite some of them with their families.
I wrote about how ICE picked up and detained an 18-year-old American citizen for 23 days (during which time that young man was given so little food that he lost 25 pounds). ICE also picked up a 9-year old girl, an American citizen, on her way to school and detained her for 32 hours. Some 24 people have died in ICE’s custody. Six children have died. Other children have been sexually assaulted.
I wrote about how every religious tradition commands us to welcome the stranger.
But I can’t use arguments or evidence or stories to convince you to care about our country holding people in concentration camps. No matter what these children or their parents did or didn’t do, no one deserves to be locked up without a trial. No one deserves to go without clean water and food, a bed to sleep in, and the medicine they need.
If you don’t see that, I fear for your soul.
Johanna Winant
Morgantown
