This post was written in response to a post that appeared at http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/sanctuary
Tessera, you are making a number of false assumptions here. You call sanctuary cities, "sanctuaries for criminals", when in fact they are the opposite. They are sanctuaries from criminals.
I've known many immigrants. I was adopted by one. His brother lived in the US as the owner of a successful small business until he died recently. Neither of these men were remotely criminal. They came to the US seeking sanctuary from war and persecution.
If you look at our history, you will see the same story repeated over and over again. Immigrants came to our shores to escape starvation, repression, or sudden death at the hands of true criminals. That's what history tells us. That's why the US has always welcomed immigrants.
The story you are repeating--for I know you did not invent it yourself--is an utter lie. You compare immigrants to burglars, assassins, and thieves. Those are not the immigrants I know. The people I know who seek sanctuary are children and their parents, who left countries where criminal gangs have taken the place of civil government. They deserve our love, not the hatred you pour out onto the page.
Coincidentally, the measures being proposed by our soulless government are precisely those that will turn the largest number of young men into criminals. ICE arrests these people near the border and releases them on the other side of it, where criminal gangs can abduct them, torture them, and force them to become members. Those young men, once converted, will return to this country as criminals.
So you see, the sanctuary movement is not accepting criminals into this country. It is welcoming young men and women who have nowhere else to go and saving them from a life of crime.
Paradoxically, the government that you claim is preserving the rule of law is actually in the process of destroying it. Rule of law requires that people be convicted of a crime before they can be punished for it. Yet here you are, claiming immigrants to be criminals and calling for their punishment. On what evidence? On the words of a right-wing website you happen to have read?
Possibly you were frightened by those words of hate and dissension. No wonder! The authors intended to scare you and used every means at their command to do so. But we must resist these enemies of humanity whenever they appear.
We must emulate the members of the Underground Railroad in the antebellum South, who saved slaves from an inhuman system of bondage and gave them a chance to be free. We must emulate the underground in Europe during the great slaughter of Jews, who hid them, shepherded them away from Europe, and brought them to America, where they and their descendants are still living today.
Most of all, we must resist people who use lies and propaganda to foster hatred and division. We can't let them sucker us into their heinous game. Please reconsider your position on this issue and adopt the ways of understanding and love.
Tessera, you are making a number of false assumptions here. You call sanctuary cities, "sanctuaries for criminals", when in fact they are the opposite. They are sanctuaries from criminals.
I've known many immigrants. I was adopted by one. His brother lived in the US as the owner of a successful small business until he died recently. Neither of these men were remotely criminal. They came to the US seeking sanctuary from war and persecution.
If you look at our history, you will see the same story repeated over and over again. Immigrants came to our shores to escape starvation, repression, or sudden death at the hands of true criminals. That's what history tells us. That's why the US has always welcomed immigrants.
The story you are repeating--for I know you did not invent it yourself--is an utter lie. You compare immigrants to burglars, assassins, and thieves. Those are not the immigrants I know. The people I know who seek sanctuary are children and their parents, who left countries where criminal gangs have taken the place of civil government. They deserve our love, not the hatred you pour out onto the page.
Coincidentally, the measures being proposed by our soulless government are precisely those that will turn the largest number of young men into criminals. ICE arrests these people near the border and releases them on the other side of it, where criminal gangs can abduct them, torture them, and force them to become members. Those young men, once converted, will return to this country as criminals.
So you see, the sanctuary movement is not accepting criminals into this country. It is welcoming young men and women who have nowhere else to go and saving them from a life of crime.
Paradoxically, the government that you claim is preserving the rule of law is actually in the process of destroying it. Rule of law requires that people be convicted of a crime before they can be punished for it. Yet here you are, claiming immigrants to be criminals and calling for their punishment. On what evidence? On the words of a right-wing website you happen to have read?
Possibly you were frightened by those words of hate and dissension. No wonder! The authors intended to scare you and used every means at their command to do so. But we must resist these enemies of humanity whenever they appear.
We must emulate the members of the Underground Railroad in the antebellum South, who saved slaves from an inhuman system of bondage and gave them a chance to be free. We must emulate the underground in Europe during the great slaughter of Jews, who hid them, shepherded them away from Europe, and brought them to America, where they and their descendants are still living today.
Most of all, we must resist people who use lies and propaganda to foster hatred and division. We can't let them sucker us into their heinous game. Please reconsider your position on this issue and adopt the ways of understanding and love.
