Monthly Archives: June 2018
Trump’s immigration policies are illegal
Trump’s immigration policies are against both international and US law. As Juan Cole writes in an article published yesterday on common dreams.org, they’re also part of an “overall refugee policy. In essence, the Trump administration is attempting gradually to abolish the acceptance by the US of asylum seekers, in stark contravention to US treaty obligations and hence to domestic US law. These measures are being taken at a time when the world refugee crisis is more acute, with 68 million displaced, than at any time since World War II.
From October 15, 2017 to the present, only 15,383 refugees were legally admitted to the US. In previous years up to 40% of those given asylum were Muslims, but almost none of those recently admitted are. Refugee rights organizations reckon that the US will accept only 25,000 refugees this year, down from 110,000 in Obama’s last year. Trump had reduced the ceiling for refugees to 50,000, but has put in place obstacles to the process that result in only half that number coming in.
The United States didn’t sign the 1951 Convention on the Treatment of Refugees, which concerned the refugees created by WWII, but did sign the 1967 Protocol to that treaty, which commits it to abide by articles 2-34 of the Convention and to apply its provisions to those made refugees after WWII. The Protocol binds Trump to act in concert with the UN High Commissioner on Refugees, who has just denounced Trump.
Jeff Sessions is not abiding by the terms of the Protocol. Although he keeps maintaining in public that refugees will have their applications for asylum processed if they present them at a regular border crossing, the evidence is that such applications are being summarily dismissed by immigration officials, who – against the law – aren’t permitting asylum-seekers access to counsel or judges. As for his policy of arresting undocumented immigrants for the misdemeanor of crossing the border even where they are asylum-seekers from political persecution, this is a violation of international and of US domestic law.
Relief Web points out that ‘under Article 31 of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, to which the United States is bound by its accession to the 1967 Refugee Protocol, parties “shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened enter or are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.”’
Sessions has also removed abuse of women as a grounds for seeking asylum, even though in Honduras and other countries from which asylum-seekers come, police and authoritarian males often use abuse and rape as methods of controlling and silencing women dissidents.”
Disposable people
Not only does yesterday’s executive order reversing Trump’s policy of separating families at the border do nothing about the three to four thousand separated children now suffering psychological damage in ICE facilities, it raises the specter of families detained together indefinitely in ICE camps — an equally scary and inhumane policy.
Guatemalans and others are fleeing dangers many of which have been created by past US foreign policy, so, in fact, we owe them a safe refuge.
We need to demand an end to all policies and practices based on the idea that certain large groups of people are dispensable, disposable, and not to be cared about. Look around — there are many — US support for the Saudi war against Yemeni civilians and for the Israeli war against Palestinians being glaring examples.
Oh, yeah — almost all of these “disposable” people are poor and black or brown. And the people creating the policies killing them, at least in this country, are white hypocritical “Christians.” But as the vestments worn by the leaders of the Poor People’s Campaign say, “Jesus was a poor man.” His work developed out of similar cruelty and oppression — in this case, by the Roman Empire — against the poor, brown people of Judea. No way would he support the cruelty and oppression perpetrated and supported by the American Empire against “disposable” (because powerless) people today.
Well, you know what? We’re not powerless if we join together and demand something different. Let’s do that. Power to the people!
It’s time to bring back the ideas and fervor of the ’60s
It’s a good thing I listen to selected episodes of “Democracy Now” via podcast, or I would have missed last Wednesday’s incredibly moving story about the Poor People’s campaign, barely mentioned in the New York Times. I hope you’ll go to http://www.democracy now.org and listen too. The story of the arrests (for demonstrating in front of the Supreme Court, which had just upheld suppression of voter rights in Ohio), what participants had to say, and the songs they sang (“Everybody got a right to live”) had me on the verge of tears. Go to www.poorpeoplescampaign.org and volunteer to join the campaign and/or donate. I did both.
This campaign inspires me for two powerful reasons: its goals not only need to be realized, but when they are the promises of my era, the ’60s, will be fulfilled (this campaign is a continuation of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1968 Poor People’s Campaign). Another key podcast, a speech by Black Panther founder and leader Bobby Seale broadcast on June 7th, is available on Alternative Radio (www.alternativeradio.org). Seale’s ideas are right in line with the Poor People’s Campaign. Power to the people!
We got the numbers 