Where to Start????? What to do?? What are the solutions? Solutions must be found!
My Granddaughter Michelle today wrote an impassioned blog on this situation. As a devoted mother of a nineteen-month old boy, she deeply feels the pain of these children and their parents. I agree with her. What a tragedy! She suggested, for information how to help, that I check a site “Cup of Jo,” which I did. A suggestion from this writer was that we contact our elected officials. After writing elected officials many times over the 30 years since returning to the States, and not receiving ever a reply indicating that my message had even been read, I am more than a bit cynical. However, this is a true crisis of humanity, and I will write my elected officials again.
Having lived for 29 years in Latin America, the subject of immigration, when we lived in Colombia and after we came back to the States, has come up innumerable times. As I write this, I do so with extreme temerity since all too often my opinions, and/or means of expressing same, from my 90-years-plus point of view, is often felt not to be correctly expressed. But I plunge ahead.
As long as I can remember U.S. immigration has been a chaotic operation on many fronts. Terribly, horribly complicated. Seemingly never consistent. Many qualified people have applied for visas, with a multitude of problems.
Years ago a man from Cali, Colombia, frequently would come to the U. S. to visit his daughter. He owns property in Cali, retired from a US firm, and in no way posed a threat to the U.S. His daughter and son-in-law are employed in the US. One day he flew to Bogota (the Cali consular office long ago closed down?) to renew his visa. He was told he made too many trips to the U.S. and could not renew his visa. No further explanation. Someone told him that he could get a U S visa if he was willing to pay $10,000. I do not know what he did. He asked me to speak to someone in the US which I did and was told, “Patricia, there is nothing we can do. The immigration system is broken.” At any rate, he did finally get a visa and recently came to see us.
There are many such stories. A man who once worked for me, came to the States through the Catholic Church. He decided not to return to Colombia. Somehow he was able to get his green card and later his U.S. citizenship. I have no idea how. I am told, there are many lawyers in the Jersey area who know how to get these things done.
Had lunch recently with a friend who emigrated from Venezuela many years ago. She was commenting on the impossibility of the immigration system. She told me about her friend who came to the States illegally. Somehow he was able to get a job, a driver’s license, payed his taxes, married and had children. He applied many times for his green card, only to be delayed for a myriad of reasons. Now he is being threatened with deportation, having to leave his wife and small children behind.
The indifference, the inefficiency of our immigration system is mind-boggling.
I am also angered with the Mexicans, who march in parades carrying signs in Spanish and carrying the Mexican flag. If they are so eager to live here, then speak English, carry signs in English, and carry the flag of the United States of America. If that Mexican flag is so important to them, then keep marching and carry it right back across the border to land which it represents. I can just hear the derisive remarks that will come my way from this comment. I lived overseas, and I learned to speak Spanish. It never occurred to me that I should do otherwise. It was not easy but it was necessary and an obligation. This was in 1956. There was no internet. I remember reading the daily newspaper with a Spanish/English dictionary in my hand.
What really puzzles me is who organized this latest caravan of such a huge number of people and why? Who vetted them before they joined the caravan to be sure they are truly people seeking asylum, and not some of them drug dealers, or pose a security threat? Why plan to bring so many people at one time? The act of processing immigrants takes time and organization and personnel. This huge number of people arriving at the same time compounds the problem,. PLEASE!! I AM IN NO WAY JUSTIFYING THE SEPARATION OF CHILDREN FROM THEIR PARENTS.
Also I am frustrated, angry, and disappointed at the various people involved who are using these poor people for political gain, and in many cases, monetary gain.
Sad commentary on our elected officials who are too busy at political gamesmanship, to work out solutions to clean up our immigration system. I find this utterly disheartening!!
It is just common sense that we cannot have people pouring over the open borders daily by the hundreds. There must be some control. Just look at the almost insurmountable problems in Europe from the invasions of immigrants from the Middle East. This too is a sad tale of human misery, yet the desire to help those deserving has been abused by the undeserving who have wrecked such havoc in Europe.
As for those evil people who take money from these poor people seeking a new life in a new land, too often the result is death and injury by the inhumane way they are transported, I have only utter disdain. They are pure evil. Human trafficking in whatever form is pure evil.
Postscript: We have been without TV all day. I just learned that the practice of taking children from their parents has been stopped. Praise God!!
Life after 90 