On Friday, April 5, standing in Calexico, California, facing our southern border with Mexico, President Trump exclaimed to refugees and migrants: “Go back! Our country is full!”
Then U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, was forced to resign within hours of the scene on the border. She had failed to solve the immigration crisis in ways consistent with Trump’s warped mind.
Response of the news media to the event was muted. Perhaps the men and women of letters were too stunned to respond, or possibly they were just too disgusted. I too spent the weekend cringing in silent solitude.
President Trump’s outcry was his declaration of moral bankruptcy. It was his admission that he failed to understand and to meet the challenge of a humanitarian crisis. Above all, it was a display of ruthless lack of compassion. Unfortunately, he was not speaking just for himself. He also spoke for all of us, regardless of whether we agree with him or not.
Trump slanders and defames the refugees and treats them like insurgent hordes of lepers. Closing the border would be a quarantine, but it would not be a cure for the underlying disease.
Our border security forces are overwhelmed by multitudes of our Central American neighbors trying to survive. To rebuff them with a proclamation that our country is full, implies a necessity to halt all immigration. Will the Statue of Liberty be given a “No Vacancy” sign to replace her torch?
The caravans of men, women, and families at our southern border are driven by desperation. Their lives are imperiled by hostile conditions in their homelands. Similarly, my mother and I were desperate as we fled from Russian captivity during World War II. We became refugees and fled to Germany, a country under siege. I empathize with human despair for I felt the horror and anguish of a ubiquitous threat of death.
On Friday, April 12, President Trump announced he is exploring an option to relocate illegal immigrants to Sanctuary Cities like San Francisco, Chicago and others. Our president said, “They want more people. We’ll give them an unlimited supply of people. We’ll see how they like that.”
But that is a threat to use unfortunate humans as instruments in a vengeful, spiteful, political grudge and it’s a misuse of power.
In response to Trump’s threat, mayors of Sanctuary Cities replied: Bring them on. We’ll welcome them with open arms.
Trump’s proposal is two-sided. The good side is that the refugees and migrants would receive better treatment in the Sanctuary Cities than in the cages of the government detention centers. Their families would be spared from being torn apart. Children would not be separated from their parents. Our Hispanic communities would embrace and accommodate the immigrants and thus minimize their stress from displacement.
The bad side is that dumping needy migrants would stress and burden the resources of the cities. Trump might also attempt to bankrupt the cities by withholding federal funding.
America’s resurgence to greatness has its roots in the hearts of her people, not in the current-day executive branch of the government.
Fred Natkevi is a longtime Oak Park resident.