EL PASO RALLY'S POLITICAL CONTRADICTIONS

El Paso

The chubby woman in a blue Pontiac
Jerked up alongside our country’s curb
Where members of contrary rallies stepped
Placarding decision street
In planned parents' hood.

One protester crossed our line,
To ask her, "What do you need?"
Bordering near to hysterical, she yelled,
“You’re wrong!” her face taut and
Yanked back from the cleft.

With drowning eyes, she shouted
“I wish I’d never been born.”
So much for ‘boarders’
And backwards wet with rivers
Walled out from us.

Then she jammed her shift's gear
And sped away, not even glancing
At Trump's declared wall or down
To her remaining child next to her,
Confused and missing her seat belt.



First pub.
in Unlikely Stories IV
in different form

Help Asylum-Seeking Mother Separated from her 7-year-old Son at U.S. Border

from Amnesty International:

"In March, Valquiria and her seven-year-old son Abel* fled Brazil and requested asylum in the US after death threats from drug traffickers. US border authorities forcibly separated them and continue to detain Valquiria...US immigration authorities must immediately free Valquiria while she pursues her asylum claim.

"...she received repeated death threats from drug traffickers who said they would kill her and her son no matter where they fled to in Brazil. On 17 March, after one night together in detention, US border authorities forcibly separated them without giving any reason, and transferred Valquiria to a detention facility called El Paso Processing Center.

"On 27 March, a US asylum officer found that Valquiria’s story was credible and justified her fear that she and her son could be killed if they returned to Brazil, allowing her to continue her asylum claim. There was no explanation as to why Valquiria was separated from her son, even though she had their identifying documents and her asylum case file recognized their family relation.

"On 10 May and 26 October, Amnesty International interviewed Valquiria in detention, where she repeatedly wept as she recounted the moment that US authorities separated her from Abel. In deep despair, Valquiria told Amnesty International of how the separation from her son had lessened her will to live.

"On 10 September, Valquiria’s asylum claim was rejected and she began the appeal process, still in immigration detention and separated from Abel. Abel is now staying with his father, who is free in the US as he pursues a separate asylum claim. Seven months after their separation and still traumatized, Abel stares at the door waiting for his mother to come home, and still cannot understand why his mother does not come home. He will turn eight-years-old on 24 November and he dreams of seeing his mother before then.

"Asylum-seekers’ right to personal liberty should be fully respected. Detention or other measures short of detention, such as restrictions on the right to freedom of movement, should only be used when necessary and proportionate and should be justified on a case-by-case basis.

"1) TAKE ACTION
Write a letter, send an email, call, fax or tweet:
Urging them to immediately grant Valquiria humanitarian parole while she awaits the decision on her asylum claim appeal, as parole should be granted for humanitarian reasons where the person does not pose a threat to public safety and presents no flight risk;

"Calling on them to provide psychosocial support to Valquiria and her son, to help them recover from the trauma experienced from their unlawful family separation;

"Calling on them to ensure asylum seekers are only detained when necessary and proportionate in the individual case, and to grant humanitarian parole to all asylum seekers whenever possible.

Contact this official by 5 December 2018:

ICE Field Office Director
Marc Moore
Ice Enforcement & Removal Operations, El Paso Field Office
11541 Montana Ave Suite E
El Paso, TX, 79936, USA
Email: Marc.J.Moore@ice.dhs.gov
Salutation: Mr. Moore

"The cases of Valquiria and her son Abel were profiled in the October 2018 Amnesty International report, “You Don’t Have Any Rights Here”: Illegal Pushbacks, Arbitrary Detention, and Ill-treatment of Asylum-Seekers in the United States.

Read the rest of the Urgent Action request at:
https://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent-actions/urgent-action-mother-and-son-separated-by-border-authorities-usa-ua-185-18/


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Human Rights Have NO Borders

Another massive ICE raid against hard-working undocumented immigrants:

"A family member of one of the arrested Corso's workers: "My soon to be brother-in-law was deported this morning...He was brought here as a young boy. He's worked at Corso's for many years. They paid him good money. By no means did they pay him what they think immigrants should be paid. They paid him good money.

"He did a good job and worked hard to provide for his family. He's got a six-month-old daughter," she added.

Allegedly, many children were left at day-care facilities because their parents couldn't pick them up.

This arresting of hardworking humans is so morally wrong! Arresting individuals who aren't criminals, and deporting people who were brought here as children is not only unfair, it's a violation of human rights:-((((.

If someone has crossed a political border without permission, he/she ought to get a ticket like a person who goes over the speed limit.

Instead of this persecution of so many immigrants, these millions of dollars ought to be spent on the pursuit violent criminals and money could be spent on more local interaction of police with their communities. What a tragic waste to have huge dollar amounts spent on over hundred police officers handcuffing diligent working individuals at their place of employment!

POLICE OUGHT to be arresting violent criminals, not hard-working individuals.

Everyone ought to be ashamed of this self-centered turn away from justice and equality by the United States.

ICE arrests 114 at Ohio garden center in major mass raid
Eric Levenson
By Carma Hassan and Eric Levenson, CNN

(CNN)US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested 114 undocumented immigrants working at an Ohio gardening business in one of its largest workplace raids in recent years.

"It is the largest in our region in the last decade," said Khaalid Walls, spokesman for ICE's Northeastern region, which comprises Michigan, Ohio, and Upstate New York.
In April, ICE arrested nearly 100 people accused of being in the US illegally at a Tennessee meatpacking plant. At the time, immigration rights groups said that operation was ICE's largest workplace raid in a decade.
Tuesday's arrests targeted employees of Corso's Flower and Garden Center in Sandusky and Castalia, Ohio, Walls said.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/06/us/ice-undocumented-immigrants-arrests-garden-ohio/index.html

Work for justice, equality, and hope for ALL HUMANS. Human rights have NO BORDERS.

In the LIGHT,

Daniel Wilcox

Rescue the Perishing, Care for the Dying...The Best Way to Help Syrian Refugees

Read the Vox article “The Best Way the US Could Help Syrians: Open the Borders”

By Dylan Matthews

“Bombing is rarely the best way to help people.”

“Morality in foreign policy isn't about bombing bad guys. It's about helping people. And usually, the best way to do that won't involve bombings at all.”

Here’s a brief excerpt:

“Ultimately, the choice was whether to commit tens of billions of dollars, and tens of thousands of US ground troops, to implement a strategy that might have toppled Assad and saved thousands of lives, but which also might have made the conflict even more brutal than it's been. The latter was probably more likely, in fact. The cost would have been considerable in any case, and the benefit very uncertain. Compared with the benefits of letting Syrian refugees into the US, which we know are great, and the costs, which we know are small, that's not a very attractive proposition.

The best humanitarian interventions don't involve the military.

Cash transfers are an extremely effective humanitarian intervention that doesn't involve the military at all.

But [military bombing] enables a strange hypocrisy. The humanitarian interventionists who would've attacked Syria, and now mourn our failure to do so, aren't [increasing our] foreign aid budget in general, perhaps to 1 percent of gross national income, like Sweden, from merely 0.2 percent.

They're not calling for reforms that make it easier for USAID and other aid agencies to spend on highly effective projects that reduce child and maternal mortality. They're not calling on the US to eliminate all quotas and tariffs on goods from poor countries, as well as farm subsidies that make it harder for poor farmers in sub-Saharan Africa to export their goods. They're certainly not calling for a massive expansion in levels of immigration to the US from...the world's absolute poorest countries.
--
Plenty of people in Washington like restricting immigration, especially low-skilled immigration from poor countries. Plenty of people in Washington like the idea of cutting the foreign aid budget, or perhaps eliminating it altogether.

But it's not too late to help refugees. The boats are still sailing, and sinking. Children are still dying. People are still suffering. It's not too late for the US to heed the International Rescue Committee's call for us to resettle 65,000 refugees, not the paltry 1,434 we've resettled so far. It's not too late to do the International Rescue Committee one better and let in 200,000, 500,000, 1 million even. It's not too late to make Syrian refugees' lives dramatically better.
--
Morality in foreign policy isn't about bombing bad guys. It's about helping people. And usually, the best way to do that won't involve bombings at all."

by Dylan Matthews

http://www.vox.com/2015/9/4/9258149/syria-refugee-humanitarian-intervention
END OF EXCERPT

Yes, what if the U.S. and many other wealthy countries such as Saudi Arabia, Germany, Iran, and many others drastically reduced their weapons and bombs budgets and funneled that money into restoration, reconciliation, development, and in the short-term immigration and refugee rescue?

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Inclusive or Exclusive?

"It is true that I have tried to make sure applicants understood that the Society of Friends they want to join is at its heart a Christian movement, but I DO NOT believe that retaining or recovering our Christian focus is a matter of policing who can join our meetings. Our spiritual clarity will not come from defending our "borders" with the outside world, but from affirming our Center from within."
Brooklyn Quaker

This Friend speaks to our condition. His statement reminds me of Thomas Kelly's comments in A Testament of Devotion and The Eternal Promise and
the many words of the Good News beginning in the New Testament that God is love and does not wish anyone to perish.