The border: Should we help or reject?
I write this from the perspective of a patriotic American that yearns to see his country as: “The home of the brave and the land of the free.” I feel prideful when I read the last few lines of the Jewish Emma Lazarus’s poem mounted on the base of the Statue of Liberty. “Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breath free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed to me I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
I was born in 1924. That was the year when restrictive immigration laws were passed. Among those affected by these laws were Jews that were deemed “undesirable.” (You noticed that I referred to Emma Lazarus as Jewish. Ironic, isn’t it?) Jews were refused entry during that time, sent back to Europe to be murdered. Even after World War II ended, most survivors were left to languish in displaced persons’ camps, some in converted concentration camps. Those camps were not completely emptied until 1952, seven years after the end of that war! President Truman pressed for their entry to the USA after President Roosevelt died. It was then that I was engaged as a social worker to assist survivors to start a new life in the USA. (In the meantime, Israel came into being with many survivors choosing to live there.)
We have another opportunity to either help or to view those seeking asylum as “criminals, bad people, drug smugglers and rapists.” Studies have shown that recent immigrants commit fewer crimes than those in the general population. I have been challenged by some friends of a different political persuasion, “Do you want open borders,” they ask?
I do not respond to that question. It is the wrong question. The appropriate inquiry would be: “Should we be helpful with people seeking a better, safer life or demonize and reject them?” Instead of troops, send trained professionals that can determine whether they may join us. Instead of billions for barriers, utilize funds to keep families united and for those that must return to their own country, let us work with those countries to have them become safer and viable. That approach is humane. We should not repeat 1924.
Sol Koenigsberg
Overland Park, Kansas
