The battle over immigration is going all over the world. It is uglier and crueler here than elsewhere but make no mistake. European countries are turning away immigrants as energetically as we are — just without the cages for children. Their reasons are the same. There are so many immigrants and they need so much help, no country wants to be responsible for their welfare. Or pay their tab.
Is the U.S. being especially cruel and lacking in compassion? Yes, but I’m not sure how much worse we are than any other country doing the same thing. It’s just they aren’t jailing children.
There are a lot of countries at war, in the process of “ethnically cleansing” their population, or rife with drug cartels slaughtering whoever they feel like slaughtering. It’s going on in all continents throughout the world.
We may well be a particularly disgusting example of refugee rejection, but we are hardly alone. Until the international community gets together and fixes the problems that are driving people out of their native lands seeking refuge anywhere, no matter how improbable the likelihood of their succeeding, it will never end. Are we, as a nation, being less compassionate and meaner-spirited than other nations?
Refugees no one wants
Probably. I am pretty sure we are the only country jailing children.
It’s a matter of degree. Moreover, we seem to be the only place in the western hemisphere to which the refugees are headed. Where is Canada? Where are the other countries in South America? Where are the Europeans, Asians, and everyone else? Are they opening their borders?
I know we have a hateful, bigoted president who should never have been elected and I’m proud to say I didn’t vote for him, would never vote for him or anyone like him. But this current frenzy didn’t start because Trump is the president. It has been building for years and no one has had any idea how to fix it.
The bottom line is making the countries from which all these people are fleeing habitable and safe for them. Until we can make that happen, the problem will persist without remission. Maybe our next president won’t jail children, but he won’t be inviting the refugees into this country either.
The triangle of desperation
Obama deported many immigrants. Millions of them. He was just a nicer guy than Donzo. But he didn’t want them either. No one at the helm of this country — or any country — will allow millions of destitute refugees into their country.
They may be nicer about how they say no, but they will say no.
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Categories: Government, Politics
It does seem impossible to solve. I’m sure most of these people would not choose to take the desperate measure of dealing with people smugglers if they didn’t have to. The ones who attempt to reach Australia are often fleeing because of religious or racial persecution in their home countries. It seems our governments choose to focus on sending them back or sending them anywhere but here rather than looking at the causes. I’m certainly not advocating taking military action against their home countries. We know that doesn’t help. I don’t know what we can do but at least we could treat the people who do get here decently, not like criminals.
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Someone recently described the conditions those children exist in and the absolute entitlement and ridiculous self-righteousness of those ‘in charge’ of the situation. I wish that person doing the telling hadn’t clued me in. It angers me greatly to think of babies and wee ones enduring a hell such as that, BUT I’m also realistic and realize that there’s nothing at all I can do ABOUT it, save continue to rail against that assh*le in office and try to get rid of him through voting. Will those children have a better future or life because that asshole in the oval office has been replaced by a potentially better or worse one? Probably NOT. I know the scars those children will bear from this whole experience will not heal rapidly, if at all and one hopes there is some sort of future for them at all. It makes absolutely no sense to me why ‘the powers that be’ targeted CHILDREN. Maybe someone ought to stick the jailers in a cage without even minimal creature comforts and leave them there in filth and degradation for a few months. I hope Karma is paying attention in any case.
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The problems really need to be fixed in their native lands. We have tried that kind of intervention in the past and it didn’t work out very well. I’m not sure there is a really “good” answer. Lots of bad ones.
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Marilyn we have so many refugees coming in to Canada, it is destabilizing. I know it has to be destabilizing where ever it happens but it has filled our homeless shelters to the point that our own homeless are living on the streets. Why aren’t our governments putting pressure on the countries that these people are leaving? There has to be a better solution to this problem.
Leslie
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That’s the bottom line, isn’t it? To stabilize the countries from which they are coming. Because IF we — as a world — don’t DO that, it will never end. It will never get better. Before we go starting wars in miscellaneous regions, we might consider what happens when we destabilize entire regions. That’s what I meant. We have to fix the REAL problem.
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It’s time we stepped up to the plate.
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Remember when we tried to fix the problems of starvation and mass murder in Somalia and how badly that went? In the end, this is the kind of thing the United Nations was supposed to help with … but the UN is effectively dead. They haven’t done anything to stop anything in any country and I strongly doubt any one country can do it on their own.
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Maybe NGO’s – someone has to step up to the plate. By letting these people in those countries are impoverishing themselves and sabotaging any future.
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It’s difficult isn’t it, admitting thousands of refugees into you country and not wanting them to come. They are mostly fleeing from their own thoughtless governments and they have living conditions at home which are way below ours. All they want is a better life. And now our well organised countries are saying no. Perhaps we have no more room, perhaps they are not behaving as the rest of us. Perhaps there is a criminal element amongst them that attack, steal, and even rape. If only there was a solution. If only we could help their own countries to see reason and organise themselves to give their people a better life so that these refugees would be happy to stay in their own countries and not leave their family and friends to their fate.
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Mainly, I think it is that they are terribly poor and needy and it puts a lot of pressure on our governments to properly care for them. It overloads our medical and educational establishments. It fills up all of the housing intended for our own poor. I don’t think it’s language or even ethnicity. It’s pressure to fix a problem that needs fixing from the bottom — at the countries of origin. If THEY can’t be repaired, the problem will never end. It will be forever. We might — from the U.S. end — stop making war!
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I suppose Marilyn, there is a good bit of truth in all that, but with Heavenly interventions, as they are happening, i believe it’s reminding everyone that this world does not belong to them, that we are all tourists, and if we are going to get invited back for another tour, we better act as if we all care, have a great day, enjoy
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Caring is all well and good, but the problem starts in their native lands. The destabilization is the result of war, rebellion, ethnic cleansing, other horrors, and utter poverty. If we can’t fix that, the problem will never end and no country has unlimited resources to care for the most desperately poor of this world. We need to give them home nations which are places a person CAN live without fear. We have not had much success in doing that.
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same goes for the general welfare of the climate, human beings don’t switch the responsibility button when there is money on the table, all they say that’s mine, thanks for your comment Marilyn
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