Inhumane Treatment of Prospective Immigrants Is Unacceptable

U.S. immigration policy as projected by the Trump Administration is often equivalent to a hate crime where treatment of those wishing to come and live in this country is concerned. Perhaps application of the Golden Rule, or at least a more humane approximation thereof than currently is all too prevalent, would be a good place to start in making our treatment of immigrants more closely mirror our professed values as a society.

That current immigration law needs reform is widely accepted. Merely claiming that the Administration is simply doing its best to enforce the laws in place may help to explain why mass deportations are taking place says nothing of the morality of doing so on the scale it is being conducted or the apparent blindness to the circumstances behind what is causing so many to risk so much in attempting to come here to live and work. The Trump Administration inherited much of this mess, as did previous administrations. The Obama Administration deported more individuals and families than did its predecessor. The issue has been allowed to fester for decades without clear and decisive legislative changes being agreed to which could facilitate improvement.

The demagoguery which has come to the fore of late has done more to heighten tensions between those who see, rightly or wrongly, problems being caused by a large influx of people looking to come to this country on a permanent basis – with the ability to participate fully in this society as citizens. Opponents of allowing more liberal immigration to take place vary in the reasons for their opposition. Some feel the newcomers are flooding the economy with too many new workers – resulted in higher unemployment among those who were here before, lower wages, or both. This was a major thread to Trump’s campaign rhetoric, including his pledge to build a wall on the Mexican border to keep foreign nationals from crossing over and entering the country unimpeded. Others (Trump included) point to national security, terrorism and drug trafficking as being problems exacerbated by lax immigration policy.

While there are calls in some quarters to reduce legal immigration for the reasons stated above, there are others – including many employers – who have traditionally gained economically by importing foreign labor to work in unskilled or low skilled jobs for low wages. Some have even used such ruses to subvert labor laws by using the fact that such workers do not have legal status to work here in order to scare them into working for extremely low wages with few if any benefits. Overall, there is a concerted effort involved to pit US born workers against immigrant workers to the ultimate benefit of their bosses. Trump played this card better than just about any politician in recent history, helping ultimately to win him the Presidency.

The longtime GOP position advocating family values somehow seems contradictory when compared to an immigration policy which leads to the splitting up of families some members of which are allowed to stay here while others are prevented from doing so. Mothers and fathers separated from children. Dependent children brought here to grow up as Americans in every way except for the geographic location of their birth. Parents of children who are born here and hence allowed to stay, but who themselves are subject to deportation because they were born elsewhere. Indefinite detention separating family members from each other. Remember here – we’re often talking about individuals whose only crime is often overstaying a visa, crossing into this country without legal documentation permitting them to do so, not violent crimes, smuggling of drugs or other illicit acts that would make American citizens criminals as well.

Humanitarian concerns that also need to be taken into account are the circumstances under which people are fleeing their homes to come here. Often, natural disasters make the homes and even the cities and towns the people come from uninhabitable for indeterminate time periods. Wars leave innocent men, women and children homeless and with little or no means to provide themselves with food, clothing, shelter or personal safety from the ravages of war. Past waves of immigration to this country have been caused by famines devastating entire countries or regions. While there is often pushback against the newcomers from those already here, these groups have eventually assimilated and become valued parts of a society that becomes greater by becoming welcoming rather than exclusive in nature.

The vast majority of people who come to this country and want to stay do not come here to destroy us, spy on us, commit terrorist acts, commit violent acts and deprive us of our human and civil rights in order to steal our hard-earned wealth and live off the fruits of our labor. Indeed, it’s often the case that our society takes more from them than it gives back to them in return. The current Administration, and particularly its chief executive, while truthfully pointing out that Congress needs to come up with acceptable legislative solutions to the problems which plague our current immigration laws, has chosen to deal with its enforcement role in a manner which causes unnecessarily cruel treatment which is deserved by none of the people subjected to it.

An end must come to the racial, religious, ethnic and sexual bigotry and scapegoating that has become all too prevalent in dealing with real human beings who have already been traumatized beyond belief by the tyrannies of war, repressive governments, harsh economic conditions, extreme weather or other environmental dangers. Our government creates many of these situations directly either by bombing their countries to smithereens, providing others with the means for doing so and/or supporting repressive regimes under which they suffer. We have a responsibility to stop our government from contributing to the harming of other people. Likewise, we have a responsibility to fix what we break ourselves. Congress needs to actually do something to fix the immigration mess and the Trump Administration needs to not treat victims of the current world situation as horrid criminals deserving of imprisonment, indefinite limbo when it comes to their living situations and/or being forcibly returned to the untenable living conditions they fled to begin with.

Congress needs to work on a long-term solution to the immigration problems that have gone untended for far too long and President Trump needs to stop referring to human beings as subhuman creatures undeserving of simple human decency. The bully needs to stop being a bully.

Further Suggest Readings:

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