The children displaced

Imagine there's no countries; it isn't hard to do.

I saw an almost miraculous change last week. A good friend of mine, in answer to a question that I posed about immigration reform, asked a question: "What if we just quit worrying about nationalism and borders? Free access!" (I'm paraphrasing.) That was quite a change from where she was some years ago when, as part of a discussion she asked her uncle, who had been in law enforcement in Arizona for a lot of years, what he thought should be done with "illegal aliens": "Give 'em a fair trial and hang 'em high!" And she wasn't out of sympathy with that. Now, it's "Let's not worry about borders so much."






I agree. She has always stated that she's a libertarian. I have always maintained that, no matter how libertarian one claims to be, there are always holes in one's libertarianism. That was hers, and she has done nicely about fixing it. No borders. . .hmmmmm. . .




Even with all that, we are and have been good friends. We disagree on much, but it is always civil, always issue-oriented, and never personal. For both of us the touchstones - the motivators - of our lives are faith and family, and that makes it all cool.






I'm not quite ready for the "no borders" thing, and it's really just a thought experiment. This whole discussion leads to thoughts about all those kids that have come across the border.




If you want to play the blame game there's lots to go around. As usual, the right wing talking heads get it wrong. To them, it's about the open door that the Obama administration has created and encouraged. They say this, innocent of any data, law or information, even anecdotal, and my response to this was a wide-eyed, "Really? You actually seriously think this? " I think they are saying this because of a mindset that everything can be blamed on Obama. "It's a rainy day in Seattle? Obama's fault!" There is some blame to be fixed on the administration for this - more later - but you can't say that the man called "The Deporter In Chief" has an open-door policy.




And, really, what does the blame game have to do with these kids?




One item where the blame belongs with the U.S. Administration: in 2009 there was a coup in Honduras. The government removed was a left-wing administration, and the coup had the (at least tacit) support of the U.S. administration which was, apparently afraid of another Hugo Chavez. So we supported a coup that removed an established, functioning government with - well, nothing really. There was a vacuum, and gang filled it. Gangs pressure these kids: "We know where you live, and you will do (whatever) for us. If you don't, we will kill your brother and father. Your sister looks like she'll be fun, and your mom just might be. Then we kill your mother, sell your sister." And the gangs could well do all this. Want to report to the police? The gangs own the police.




The gang violence has no limit, really; businesses pay tribute, and the gangs really don't care if your business has made money - you have to come up with their protection money or (see the threats of violence mentioned earlier.) Even city bus drivers have to pay tribute.




And so, folk in Honduras - and a couple of other Central American countries - make an incredibly difficult decision. They decide that the children have a better chance at a decent life by sending them to El Norte - the U.S. Surely those kids would be safer here, no? But Central America isn't on the U.S. border. The youngsters have to cross the length of Mexico to get here. Often the journey is on the tops of railroad cars, and gangs take over the railroad cars. Boys who don't comply risk being sliced and diced and dumped. Girls, compliant or not, risk being raped and or sold into sex slavery. The lucky ones who get to the U.S. are transported. The housing available is deplorable, but in fairness, we've been caught off guard by all of this. We have this huge influx, and no clue what to do with it.

Nothing to kill or die for. . .

Send them back? Just keep them in these putrid conditions?




I had thought and hoped that our hearts were bigger than that. Do you want to be the one who sends a 12-year-old girl into slavery? Do you want to send a 7-year-old boy to certain death?




I would love to say I have a solution. A real solution would involve expense, work and time. Since we are dealing with children, that last commodity is sorely lacking.




Most of all, it will involve us digging into our hearts more than we have before. We can solve this, and we can be an enormous - even life-saving - help. But we gotta wanna.

And no religion, too.

More about that tomorrow.