My Two Cents: Turning Our Backs On Refugees

So … "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I think we need to take down that statue since some of us in this country, and oddly enough, the ones of us who spout their faith and Christianity at every turn, no longer believe in what Emma Lazarus wrote, and what is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty.

So … give it back. Take it down, put it on a big ship and tell France we no longer believe in those words.

The governors of some thirty-one states — and it could be more, I haven’t checked the news lately — including our own Nikki Haley who reminds us every time she opens her mouth what a good Christian woman she is, have asked that no Syrian refugees be allowed to enter their states.

Their states. And, of course, they have no plan to accomplish this since they have no legal recourse, no authority, to do any such thing; that would be up to the federal government, wingnuts. But the question of whether they can refuse entry to refugees or not is unimportant, when you think about why, why, they would want to punish refugees fleeing ISIS and war and persecution and death.

How Christian is that? I saw a meme on Facebook that said something to the effect that if only there was a seasonal story about Middle Eastern refugees being denied a play to stay. If only … Jesus, Mary and Joseph. That’s the story!

But these governors don’t remember that and want to turn their backs, our collective backs, on people feeling for their lives because maybe, maybe, one of them, maybe two, might be a terrorist even though they have no proof that this is so.

Oh, but wait. Jeb No-Last-Name will accept the refugees, if, and only if, they can prove they are Christians because real Christians don’t commit acts of terror.

Timothy McVeigh.

But again, how is this Christian? How is this what they teach in churches or the Bible? Turning away those in need, those running from certain death? How is that Christ-like at all?

And how is this American? I mean, unless you’re a direct bloodline to a Native America we are all, each and every one of us, immigrants and refugees — Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio’s families fled persecution in Cuba, so I guess they should consider themselves lucky that there weren’t politicians with their own bent mindset in place when they arrived on calmer shores.

So … if only there was a way to see if this might work before we actually do it you know, if only there was an historical precedent, an historical action, that we might compare this to, so we can see what could happen if we turn our backs on those in need.

Oh wait … back in 1939, the MS St Louis arrived in New York City carrying nearly a thousand Jews fleeing persecution in Europe. And what did we do to those huddled masses yearning to breathe free?

We told them to get out, and to go back where they came from and so the ship turned around and headed back to Europe where some other countries took some of those folks in, gave them shelter. But around 250 of those refugees, who came here, begging for help, begging for us to save their lives, were taken into Nazi concentration camps where they were murdered.

Is that what we want … again? Is that America? Is it Christian? It is right?