Category Archives: immigration

August 5, 2016 · 1:55 pm

Cheering for the Olympic refugee team: They’re already winners

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Yusra Mardini and her sister fled the war in Syria, two teenagers making their way through Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, the Balkans and Central Europe to Germany. Crossing the Mediterranean in an overloaded rubber boat, they jumped in the water when the engine died and the boat started taking on water. Here’s how the New York Times tells her story:

“Of the 20 people on board, only the Mardini sisters and two young men knew how to swim, so the four of them jumped overboard. It was about 7 at night, and the turning tide had made the sea harsh and choppy. …

“Mardini and her sister swam for three and a half hours, helping the boat stay on course — even when the two male swimmers gave up and let the dinghy pull them along. It was cold, Mardini said. Her clothes dragged her down, and salt burned her eyes and skin.

“’I’m thinking, what? I’m a swimmer, and I’m going to die in the water in the end?’ she said.”

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July 24, 2016 · 4:45 pm

Catching up on news between elephant fights

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When two elephants fight, the grass gets trampled, says a Swahili proverb, which puts me in mind of the RNC and DNC domination of July news. Despite the elephants, other news is happening to people who, like grass under elephants’ feet, seem barely noticed. If you, like me, feel closer to the grass underfoot than to the elephants in Cleveland and Philadelphia, here’s a quick round-up of some important news items you may have missed. Continue reading →

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June 23, 2016 · 2:00 pm

After the Supreme Court failure on immigration — keep on talking, keep on walking

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Noemi Romero from The Excluded website

Hours after today’s disastrous Supreme Court immigration decision, a website called The Excluded popped up in my Facebook feed. The Excluded faces and stories of longtime U.S. residents who live every day at risk of deportation.

“Noemi Romero, 24, has lived in Arizona practically her whole life. At the age of 21 while she was raided by Sheriff Arpaio’s deputies while working to save money to pay for her DACA application. She can no longer able to apply due to her felony for working.”

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June 20, 2016 · 9:43 pm

63 million people and a crisis of solidarity

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A new UN refugee agency report shows 65.3 million people forcibly displaced from their homes around the world. Of that number, 21.3 million are refugees and 3.2 million are aseeking asylum. Another 40.8 million internally displaced persons live inside their home coujntries, but have been forced out of their homes.

Numbers can only hint at human suffering. Continue reading →

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June 5, 2016 · 8:45 am

Changing the world for good: Minnesota’s Advocates for Human Rights

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As bad as every day’s news looks, Christof Heyns says, the world is actually getting less violent. He should know. Serving as the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions since 2010, Heyns has spent years looking at the worst of what the world has to offer. But, he says, over four centuries, the percentage of people dying because of violence has declined. “Our standards and awareness are increasing,” he said, but the world is getting less violent.

Heyns spoke at the annual awards dinner of the Advocates for Human Rights on June 1. The work of The Advocates is part of the reason that the world is getting less violent. Continue reading →

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May 15, 2016 · 8:54 am

God help the refugees. God help us all.

Dadaab Oxfam

2012: Fatuma Sankos arrived in Dadaab two months ago with her two small sons – Abass Hassan and Mohamed Hassan. She lives in a tiny shelter made from sticks, cardboard and plastic bags. She has not yet been formally registered in the camp so is not able to get food rations and depends on other refugees for food, and aid agencies for water. Photo: Jo Harrison/Oxfam, published under Creative Commons license

Kenya announced last week that it will close all of its refugee camps, forcing more than 600,000 refugees to return to the violence they fled in their home countries of Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia and other nearby countries. That’s terrible, but the United States is in no position to criticize Kenya. In secret memos uncovered last week, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ordered a 30-day “surge” of arrests of immigrant mothers and children to return them to the violence they fled in their home countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Continue reading →

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May 7, 2016 · 9:28 pm

Let’s jail the children and call it child care

Photo of Karnes detention facility

Photo of Karnes detention facility by Jeff Pearcy, published under Creative Commons license.

 

Texas, leading the nation as always, granted a child care license to a jail on April 29. It’s a special, private jail, an immigration detention center in Karnes City run by the private, for-profit GEO Group. The Texas license comes in response to a federal judge’s order that migrant children must be released from detention centers because it’s against the law to hold kids in unlicensed facilities. (A few days after the license was issues, a Texas judge blocked, at least temporarily, a second license for another immigration jail and set a hearing on the licenses for May 13.) Continue reading →

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April 22, 2016 · 2:04 pm

April mourning in the Mediterranean —again

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A Syrian migrant holds a young girl in his arms upon arriving on a dinghy to the Greek island of Kos, Greece.(EPA/Yannis Kolesidis) (Photo courtesy of Freedom House.

One year ago, I wrote “At least seven hundred people, maybe 900 or more, were on the 70-foot ship that sank in the Mediterranean on Sunday. Almost all of them died.” Last week, it happened again. Another boat packed with refugees capsized and sank, drowning hundreds of refugees. Continue reading →

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March 13, 2016 · 5:01 pm

Three-year-olds, immigration law, and the presidential candidates

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David Wilson and Jane Guskin explain what’s wrong with the mainstream immigration debate, including the Sanders/Clinton pseudo-discussion in their March 9 debate:

“The media and the politicians treat the migration either as a natural disaster (‘flooding over the border’) or as a second-rate science fiction movie (‘the aliens are invading’) — with either scenario seen as deserving an aggressive response.

“But in the real world, the asylum seekers and other migrants that some call ‘illegals’ are human beings pushed from their homes by economic dislocation or fear of violence, often risking their lives for a chance at a brighter future.  And U.S. foreign and economic policies are intimately linked to these ‘push factors.'”

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March 11, 2016 · 10:44 pm

As France clears “the jungle,” refugees flee to even worse camps

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White board from an English classroom, before Calais camp was dismantled. Photo by EngageJoe, published under Creative Commons license.

French authorities cleared a Calais refugee camp called “the jungle” this week — and the refugees displaced from the squalid camp scattered to set up even less secure camps nearby. But what did the French government expect? The refugees in Calais have nowhere to go, and burning down their tents and shacks does not magically create alternatives, but rather increases their misery. Continue reading →

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