In cancelling DACA, Attorney General Jeff Sessions positively cited our nations' immigration policy shift in 1924, when we enacted racial quotas to sharply limit immigration from "non-White" parts of the world. At that time, Jews were part of the "non-White" horde, and these new laws were integral in keeping out Jewish refugees attempting flee Nazi atrocities before and during World War II. It was a policy of death, enacted on a foundation of racism. No wonder Sessions loves it.
There probably aren't that many Jewish DREAMers today, but the Forward found at least one -- a young man from Venezuela who's lived in America since he was six. He came to this country legally along with his mother, who had a work visa. Unfortunately, when she died of cancer while he was still in elementary school, that visa was canceled without him being aware of it. This is just one example of many showing why the "rule of law" attack against DACA kids is utter nonsense. What exactly is the lesson supposed to be: "That will teach you to let your mom die of kidney cancer"? It's grotesque.
Attorney General Sessions said that, in ending DACA, we are not saying that DREAMer youth are "bad people." He's right. We're saying we are.
Americans have no birthright to a country we can be proud of. We write our own history. As Richard Rorty once observed: "There is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves." We decide what sort of country we are, and that means it's on our shoulders when the decision we make turns out to be ... this.
No comments:
Post a Comment