Why We are All to Blame for this Country’s Immigration Crisis

What seems to be this country’s never-ending hostile immigration climate is nothing new per se, it just feels more glaring than ever before. In a lot of ways, it is. The facts are atrocious. Here are just some at a glance:

• The administration has taken over 1,000 migrant children from their parents since a judge ordered against it more than a year ago.

• Officials have pushed nearly 38,000 asylum seekers back across the U.S. southern border in roughly seven months.

• Children are dying because of this country’s neglect.

• Children as young as three are being ordered into court for deportation hearings without parents or guardians.

• The administration is pushing for the indefinite detainment of children and their families.

• Children like this 14-year-old are having to battle cancer without their parents because they keep being denied entry.

• U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) are denying deferral requests from people in the middle of ongoing treatment for illnesses like cancer, epilepsy, and HIV.

• The administration continues to limit the number of refugees allowed to enter this country and won’t stop until the allowance is zero.

It seems so many are in an uproar about the apparent concentration camps at the border and the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, but what are we doing about it?

The coalition of states suing the Trump administration to stop the indefinite detention of migrant children and groups like the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights in Chicago who are helping separated children at the border are great starts, but long overdue. It only serves to chip away at what feels like an insurmountable battle.

I’m not sure if we, the sane citizens of America, are just not believing the administration when they say they are going to do these things and then stand dumbfounded when it actually happens, or if most don't actually care.

I pray it’s not the latter.

“We have no one to blame but ourselves. How can we call ourselves human beings and continue to let people who are a part of the same human race, under our watch, be treated this way?”

We know that the acts that are unfolding are basically against the law. We know the administration isn’t going to stop until our borders are basically closed to refugees and asylum seekers (with the exception of their family members, of course). We know all the horrific, demystifying, and hypocritical facts. And yet, we still find ourselves here, with our hands tied.

We have no one to blame but ourselves. How can we call ourselves human beings and continue to let people who are a part of the same human race, under our watch, be treated this way? These “people” are human beings like you and me. They are mothers and fathers and daughters and sons and uncles and aunts and friends and neighbors. So why are we allowing them to be treated like they’re not? Why are we tolerating this intolerable atrocity?

Comments from people like Catalina Lauf, touted as a Republican for Millenials, only serves to perpetuate this current hostile political climate, which she boldly defends. In a Fox interview, the Republican Congressional hopeful noted her Guatemalan grandmother and mother as “legal” immigrants.”

This was Lauf’s response to what she thinks of people calling Trump racist:

“People like my mom and my grandmother and many other Hispanic-Americans who have come here legally feel so insulted by that, because they did it the right way. And there's a process for it. And you should be a law-abiding citizen. President Trump is doing his best to protect this country, and we should be enforcing immigration laws.”

Personally, I think we are way past racist at this point. But I’m glad she feels she can speak for every Hispanic-American, however, she does not speak for this one.

First off, I am Latina. And like Catalina, the proud granddaughter of immigrants. Though I am sure that’s where the buck stops on our similarities.

My grandfather left his wife and children in Mexico to come to this country in hopes of providing a better life for his family. And he did. He got that chance because this country was in need of labor due to the Korean war taking a chunk of the workforce. My grandfather took the opportunity and leveraged it. And as a result, my mother and her siblings and I, and my cousins benefited from being born U.S. citizens.

Don’t get it twisted, though. America did give him a green card, but at their convenience, “Cuando lo conviene”. My grandfather and family still faced injustice, racial profiling, inequality, and more. But he made it. And because he had the chance to make it, we made it too. That’s what this country has been to my family. To Catalina’s family and to so many other families. Altruistic in the least, but nonetheless, a place for chances.

This country was supposedly largely founded on the idea of unalienable rights. By definition, rights that are “unable to be taken away.” The Declaration of Independence names three unalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These are said to have been given to humankind by its creator, and it is the government’s job to protect. I am well aware that at the time these words were written, more than 500,000 Americans were slaves and were not considered apart of this constitution. They are now though.

We’ve evolved. Or at least I’d like to think we have.

The refugees and asylum seekers fleeing from famine and war and disaster, knocking on our doors, are looking for that chance of, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Sadly, we’re doing nothing to help them. Instead of defending the rights of mankind, our government has decided to make these peoples’ lives a living hell, as if they haven’t already survived that and more. We have no intention of helping them. We only serve as a pit stop on their journey of unimaginable suffering, something none of us will ever come close to experiencing in our lifetime. And we have the nerve to tell them to “get in line” and “do it the right way” by “following the rules” like everybody else.

Rules that are archaic, confusing, and hypocritical at best. Rules that go directly against this country’s founding principles. But oh wait, “our country is full,” remember? “I see my mother and father when I look at them, I see myself in those kids,” my mother said. Her words resonated to the deepest part of my humanity as I echoed her sentiments. Why can’t we all see ourselves in them? For they are human and they are asking for a chance, just like us?

A chance for better. Isn’t that what we all strive for?

“You think we would have at least progressed some since these times more than 50 years ago. Yet it seems we have digressed so much beyond what we thought was “bad” then. Are we proud, America?”

Growing up in a family of seven, my mother and her siblings can recount experiences where their legality was questioned. My uncle was a pre-teen playing outside by himself when a man walked up to him and grabbed him and asked him if he was a legal citizen. Terrified and confused all he could do was point them to his house where his mother, my grandmother, frantically rushed to supply proof of their green card. On another occasion, two men followed my grandfather and his brother into a corner store they frequented to cash their checks. My grandfather and his brother were targeted because they were speaking Spanish. The men made my grandfather and uncle get into their car and drove them to my grandfather’s house so he could show them proof that they were here legally. My grandfather and uncle obliged. My mother and the rest of her siblings can all tell of similar accounts.

You think we would have at least progressed some since these times more than 50 years ago. Yet it seems we have digressed so much beyond what we thought was “bad” then. Are we proud, America? As a U.S. born citizen, I used to think I was blessed to be afforded such freedom. But it’s times like these when I start to question that. Why on earth would we make the decision to take away someone else’s chance at freedom - or basic rights - when we were blessed by chance to be born into it?

I don’t blame Catalina or anyone else who defends the current administration. Because the truth is, we are all to blame. We don’t have to see eye to eye on every issue in order to agree that what is happening is an outrage. It’s been said that the only way evil can prevail is when good men (and women) do nothing. So can we for one minute forget about politics and semantics and focus on morality? If it even exists anymore. I pray it does. Because Republican, Democrat, black, white, brown, whatever, should not dictate our level of morality.

Yet we keep allowing it to.

And sadly, all the colors and creeds of this nation have utterly failed. Not just the families whose lives we continue to shatter, but ours as well.

In the words of Lauren Duca:“Truly, where the hell is our soul, America? I do hope that we find it soon.”

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