This humanitarian move started with Father Bryan Walsh, a priest in the Miami diocese, who worked out a project called Operation Pedro Pan with the U.S. State Department. After the revolution in Cuba Castro started separating children from their families as a literacy campaign. Shortly after this the Cuba government started closing down all the schools, including and especially the private and Catholic schools causing a mass panic. Operation Pedro Pan allowed visa waivers for children 16 or under. This agreement opened the US boarder for more than 14,000 children from Cuba to get visa’s to come to the US without their parents. Now I’m not saying this was easy for the families in Cuba, and especially for the children who left them. I even question the motivation, was it anti-communism motivated?
Operation Pedro Pan is just one insight in how we can help children and other people showing up at the border. We should also look beyond the media hype because border crossings are much lower than their peak in 2000. The makeup of the people crossing the border is also different, more women and children are trying to enter the United States to seek asylum. Asylum is a legal category and can be hard proof. Back in the 80’s I knew someone from El Salvador who was seeking asylum here in the US, they had been here for ten years and still working their way through the process.
Several years ago I was asked to give a statement on the situation of woman and gays in Mali to be submitted in the case of a lesbian from Mali trying to get asylum status. I know the situation for woman in Mali is grim, I did a lot of work on gender and development when I lived there. This didn’t prepare for me for the lesbian’s statement I read. The fear she experienced I was unaware of. I knew nothing happened without the OK of the men in charge and never challenged this, always following protocol to get things done.
Think about the current situation at the US boarder where thousands of children are coming every day from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. These countries are among the world’s most dangerous societies where out of every 100,000 people, the homicide rate is nearly five times what the World Health Organization considers an “epidemic.” People face an insurmountable level of violence, insecurity and lack of economic opportunities. “Join-or-die” gang recruitment policies make life nearly impossible for innocent youth in gang-controlled areas. Business owners face extortion and threats from gangs while corrupt and inadequate policing fails to protect them.
Where is the Christian community in all this? Where is the humanity that people in the US showed the children from Cuba? There are some efforts both in the religious community and at the State Department. But there has been a nearly 20% decrease in U.S. assistance to Central America since 2016. US Foreign aid is supporting vital work that tackles the violence in Central America driving youth to leave their homes while providing security and opportunity to thousands of families in Central America. The US government funded a $13-million program in Honduras and El Salvador that provides job training and employment services to some 5,100-low-income youth living in violent and crime-ridden communities. But this is not enough.
Economic development as well as reaching out to local people who are the grassroots of any community to build capacity for humanity and safety. This is a forgotten strategy even here at home. Local people are the foundation of any society, not the policy makers, not the people with money. Its you and me in our everyday actions with people in our community that set the tone for society.
No comments:
Post a Comment