Immigration a humanitarian cause
To look into the eyes of Sister Norma Pimentel and to hear her tell stories of young girls raped as they tried to cross into South Texas during this year s immigration surge; or stories about women, preparing to be raped on their perilous journey north, tucking morning after pills in their shirts to ward off pregnancies; or stories of parents putting their 12 year old daughters on birth control for the journey, is to get a horrifying glimpse of what some have endured to get to this country.
It puts into perspective the callousness of an attitude that ignores these horrors and dehumanizes these people as nothing more than lawbreakers because of their desire to better their lives or to flee for safety in native lands that are wracked with violence. And it underscores the troubling political calculus by our government intent not on dealing with a humanitarian crisis, but minimizing harm to their respective political parties.
While almost everyone agrees that the United States must first secure its border and then pass comprehensive immigration reform legislatipatagonia guide jacket trends2on, the details of that reform remain murky and far from enough consensus to act. Meanwhile, immigrants continue to come through our southern border and we have a moral responsbility and imperative to treat them with dignity and respect, particularly after what they ha插入patagonia guide jacket trends37ve been through. As a nation, we need to be better at this than has been the case.
There was the father who came with his 10 year old son and felt compelled to offer a confession, of sorts, to Sister Norma. During their journey, he told her, they befriended two teenage girls who were no older than 15. As their bus was traveling through Tampico, Mexico, it was stopped by gun toting men who he believed were members of a drug cartel. They boarded the bus and ordered all the Central Americans off the bus, taking them to a stash house.
When we got to the stash house, they took the girls to another room and they raped them in that room because they were screaming and yelling and we never saw those girls again. We never saw them again, the man told Sister Norma.
A suspected cartel member also put a gun to the head of his 10 year old son. They said Call your family and get us more money or I m going to kill your son right now, he said. And they clicked the gun. The gun did not go off. I don t know if it was God that saved him or it was the fact that they were just threatening him, he told her. The man and his son were released several days later when his family sent additional money. But the memory of those girls has haunted him ever since, Sister Norma said.
This is just one story and there are many others. But that one really hurts so much to remember, Sister Norma told us.
Stories like these policymakers should hear and these stories should be part of the equation when they forge a solution to an immigration problem that we all acknowledgepatagonia r1 gloves review exists.
Over centuries, the international community has developed a common law concept called safe harbor, a concept based on the fundamental principle that a ship out at sea that is caught in a storm should be able to seek safe harbor from the storm without concern over who controls that harbor.
To develop immigrpatagonia az directionsation reform without acknowledging the storm of violence and other threats in Central America is to ignore the international principle of safe harbor.
There is a courage that is needed on both political parties to recognize that certainly we can do better as a patagonia girls better sweater fleece hoodycountry than we have been in order to address these changing conditions that have affected so many immigrant families. They live in fear, Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville tells us.
Most people don t want patagonia simple guideto leave their home country because people love the place where they were born. It would have to be extreme conditions to force someone to leave the place they love, Flores said.
While Sister Norma spent the summer aiding the surge of immigrants crossing our border, those who brave rape or the unpredictable drug cartels are seeking safe harbor and escaping poverty, drugs, gang violence and unspeakable horrors in their homelands, the bishop traveled to Central America and met with immigrants and local leaders there.
People such as the bishop and the sister have become experteuc patagonia boys girls kids usa red fall fleece snap t jacket youth sz m gifts on this humanitarian component of immigration and we should listen to their advice.
Sister Norma s organization, Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, of which she is executive director, mobilized an army of volunteers to help these immigrants 250,000 have come through South Texas this past year, including 60,000 unaccompanied children.
The journeys of these people average 16.4 days, with much of it on foot. Mpatagonia outlet store laost of them are women and children, ages 3 to 10, with very few older than 45. They endure unconscionable, unspeakable acts in which rape and violence are expected and they endure harsh conditions during their trips, for which they pay $5,000 to $8,000 apiece. For many, it s their family s life savings.
Catholic Charities have helped over 8,000 immigrants since the beginning of June mostly women with small children in the parish hall of McAllen s Sacred Heart Catholic Church. They re offered a hot meal, clean clothes, a bath, a place to rest and hugs. This is just a fraction of those apprehended, but there have been days when they have helped 400 immigrants inside the church s small and dated parish hall.
From this mantle of experience, Sister Norma raises some fundamental questions that we agree should be answered: Why hasn t the federal government done more to address the humanitarian component of this problem? And where is the Red Cross, an agency trained and funded to handle such humanitarian crises?
In lieu of this help, volunteers from every religious denomination have come from California, Maryland, New York, Florida and throughout Texas to offer help. Some volunteers come for a week or a weekend at a time. Some use their vacation time from work to do so and they pay for their travel and lodging just to offer help here. Some spend their days sorting usable items at the Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley in Pharr, which is the collection site for drop off donations.
Their methods are improvised, selfless and courageous, but they work.
One immigrant from Guatemala spoke a dialect no one understood possibly Mam or the Mayan language of K iche. Sister Norma said they couldn t tell her that she had to give her sick daughter medicine several times a day. So they bought her a disposable cellphone and had the woman s husband call her to remind her every time she needed to give the child medicine. Then they put her on a bus and hoped the battery would last until they got to her destination.
That s more than our lawmakers in Washington can say they have done. They have abdicated their duties because of harsh political winds. President Barack Obama, who himself on June 2 called this a humanitarian crisis, and Congress have repeatedly put off adequately addressing the issue and reforming immigration or securing funding to help immigrants until after the Nov. 4 elections.
Border Patrol officials, we are told, recognized a surge in immigrants in South Texas last winter yet failed to alert the public or even tell Congress until the spring, at which point agents were already overwhelmed. Despite apatagonia guide jacket creator summer of the intense glare of the nation, lawmakers still failed to deliver any appreciable help.
Perhaps if they heard Sister Norma s stories, and knew what these people have endured there would be more urgency for policymakers to help.
And while the symptoms of this crisis have abated as summer has turned to fall a time when migratpatagonia guide jacket trendsion typically increases the problems that drove this crisis to begin with go unaddrepatagonia guide jacket trends0ssed.
Therefore, we call on policymakers at the federal, state and local levels to do the following:
Acknowledge, as Obama did, that we have a humanitarian problem and consider these immigrants refugees eligible for asylum. A pledge by Obama earlier this month to grant 4,000 of these immigrant children from Central America refugee status does little for the thousands of others. There must be a way to include more into an asylum program, just as all Cubans who make it to our shores are automatically granted asylum.
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Provide funding to deal with the humanitarian component of this issue until we can address the more complex immigration component. This would include reimbursement to local governments, such as the City of McAllen, Hidalgo and Cameron counties, for the extraordinary supppatagonia guide jacket trends1ort role they have played in helping such groups as Catholic Charities, which opened several shelters across the Rio Grande Valley region.
Use what has happened in McAllen as a model for other communities. As Hidalgo County Health Director Eddie Olivarez told us: We should all be proud at how McAllen has handled this. We showed the nation and the world that we care about these people.
