Refugee children, angry patriots, amd shameless politicians

Rep. Louic Gohmert (R-TX) almost makes Ted Cruz (R-TX) look calm and rational.   He makes headlines with statements like:  "U. S. Will Become a Third World Nation If the Feds Don't Enforce Immigration Policy."     Groups of angry conservatives, revved up by right-wing media misinformation are ranting about kids being "exploited by the feds" and blaming President Obama's immigration policies for causing what Gohmert refers to as "an invasion."

What he and others don't seem to realize is that:

(1)  Most of these children are actually fleeing their Central American homelands which have become exceedingly dangerous for young people because of gang warfare, kidnapping, sex trade, and drugs.  They are in fact refugees;  and, as such, they come under different laws that require their bid for asylum be evaluated.   They are not here illegally -- by definition of the 2002 Homeland Security Act as ammended in 2008 and signed into law by President George W. Bush.    They cannot simply be sent home without an evaluation to see if they can be returned to a safe environment or if they warrant asylum in our country. 

(2)  The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 was written specifically to protect unaccompanied children coming across our borders.   Those from Mexico or Canada, continguous countries, can simply be turned over to their own governments at the border and returned to their own county.   This VPR Act makes provisions that unaccompanied minors from non-continguous countries like Hondurus, El Salvador, and Guatamala cannot simply be turned back at the border but must be evaluated and have a deportation hearing.  Part of the investigation is an assessment of what danger they would be returned to.   One analysis said that over 90% of these children are from one of those three countries.

The agitating right-wingers are saying this is all Obama's fault, or the fault of this law, or simply that we should just turn them back anyway.   Bring out the National Guard, bring out the militas with their AK-47s to patrol our border to stop this "invasion."   What they are demanding is against our own laws.

That's the level of rhetoric that is spewing from these hate-filled border zealots -- or are they just scared?    Either way, this is a humanitarian crisis.  We should deal with it in a humane way, starting with the Republicans in Congress voting to give the funds President Obama is asking for to house, feed, evaluate, and find dispositions for all of these children.

Shame on us if we do not meet this challenge with compassion.   Look at the millions that our invasion of Iraq turned into refugees to neighboring, much-smaller countries -- and they took them in.   Look at the millions of refugees from Syria -- and Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey and others take them in.  

If we can't find room for 50,000 children long enough to evaluate to see if they are indeed refugees from danger -- rather than freeloading, poachers, as Louie Gohmert and his ilk would have it -- then we have indeed sunk a long, long way from our position in the 19th and 20th centuries when the United States was the land that welcomed refugees and immigrants.

We shouldn't need Pope Francis to admonish us to step up and handle this humanitarian emergency.  But we did need it -- and he did it.    Will we listen?

Ralph