Mark Twain

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do ...
Explore. Dream. Discover." Mark Twain

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Immigration - Worth the Read

Found this on Facebook.  Its rather long, but it puts more facts to our current immigration issues with the US American border.

Facts are always good!


Mike Harlos
So I have almost completely avoided political posts for over a year now.
Today, I take a break from that. 
Tornillo, TX is on the US/Mexico border. There is a “tent city facility” setup there. The facility is housing 326 children (312 boys, 14 girls). 
Of the 326:
162 are from Guatemala
117 are from Honduras
40 are from El Salvador
4 are from “other countries”
3 are from Mexico
(And apologies, I would love to post a Fox News link but they don’t seem to be trying to get into these facilities to release these kinds of statistics, but if it happens someone please let me know!)
I think it’s a fair assumption that the percentage of children would also be fairly close to the percentage of adults that came to the border. 
So if less than 1% are from Mexico, what exactly is happening?
The reason that 98% are from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala is that, out of 195 countries:
El Salvador has the 2nd highest rate of violent deaths.
Honduras has the 4th highest rate of violent deaths.
Guatemala has the 17th highest rate of violent deaths.
I’ve included a map for those unaware of the locations of each of these countries.
We are being told that all these people “pouring into the US” are Mexican drug dealers, rapists, murderers, “bad hombres”. 
But it just isn’t true. 
Think about when a major hurricane comes to Florida and people pack up their vehicles and evacuate, out of caution, especially those with children... just in case. Depending on the situation, people typically traveling 50-500 Miles (driving to inland Florida or Atlanta/Tennessee) 
Now imagine it’s a hurricane that is firing bullets randomly and people are dying all around you in your neighborhood every day. And you have children. 
To quote President Ronald Reagan, from his final Oval Office address to the nation: 
“The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the "shining city upon a hill." The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free.
I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.”
The VAST MAJORITY of the people coming to the United States are coming, in the ways discussed so much lately, are seeking refugee status or asylum. 
US Legal Definitions of both “refugee” and “asylum”:
https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum
Stop getting caught up in just agreeing with everything someone says or does because you voted for that person and if they do something wrong, it’s human nature to defend the choice you made in that voting booth. 
Don’t put pride and ego ahead of intellect. 
Every situation should be judged based on fact, not on who is saying it or doing it and not just because it’s “your team”. 
Parents aren’t taking their children and leaving everything else and everyone else they’ve ever known to walk, raft, swim, hide in vehicles, etc for ~2,000 miles to get to our border and request refugee or asylum status just to “get free hand outs” and “take our jobs”. 
(1 little sidenote, if “Mexico” (And we’ve already established it mostly isn’t Mexico) is really sending their worst (no one is sending these people, and I can’t imagine that most people that really care about their children this much are “the worst”) that are “murderers, drug dealers, rapists” and you’re worried about one of these people taking your job, what the hell is it you do for a living?)
Yes, any time you have a large number of people, there will be some bad apples. But there’s a reason you’ve never been shown actual statistics that show that someone coming here as a refugee or seeking asylum is any more likely to commit a crime than anyone else. Because it isn’t true.
MOST are doing it for the same reasons people evacuate. 
They’re doing it to protect their loved ones.
And they’re doing it in a way that is consistent with the United States Refugee & Asylum laws. 
I can explain it to you
I cannot understand it for you.

6 comments:

Marie Smith said...

The last sentence is profound.

Retired Knitter said...

I agree.

The last sentence is made "profound" by the facts that came before it. That is what is missing in these discussions - facts! The news is made up of sound bites and whatever it takes to grab an audience - not facts.

Getting facts into the electorates' minds is a challenge because most people just want sound bites. No time with all the other competing distractions to seek the facts.

Just sad.

Michelle said...

Thanks for sharing facts! The bottom line is that most immigrants today are coming for the same reason immigrants have ALWAYS come to our shores (including before they were "our" shores) – for freedom from violence, religious persecution, starvation, extreme poverty. And I love the pithy quote ending in "what the hell is it you DO for a living???"

Cynthia said...

Excellent. But I don't know how you make people read facts and think on their own. Too many want their opinions served up to them the easy way, by the loudest, most obnoxious politician, news feed, or (dare I say it?), preacher.
I was listening to something on a podcast this morning before I got up, the gist of which was, this is current immigrant situation is another thing America will be apologizing for in years to come, like Black slavery, the internment of Japanese American citizens during WWII, the treatment of Native Americans, Irish, the Chinese, and on and on. You can lead a horse to water ... Etc. Happy 4th of July, America!

Retired Knitter said...

I have heard that quote before. But it seems to make no difference to those that object to immigrants in our current mess. These objecting citizens don't actually pick produce on the farms, or do the landscaping, or pave the roads, but they don't want someone who speaks Spanish as their native tongue to do it either. Makes no sense.

Retired Knitter said...

Good point. You are right. Another thing we will be apologizing for in the future. Seems like we never learn from any of those previous mistakes.