The Syrian Civil War is thought to be the cause of the largest migration of people since World War II. The thousands of desperate people flooding Europe from Syria may be caused by the war, but the war was primed by the extensive drought caused by manmade global warming. Similar situations exist in the western hemisphere.
The United States has witnessed a similar migration from Mexico and Central America. Greg Harman, a contributing editor of TCN, explains that this migration is partly due to drug violence that murders ninety people per every 100,000. In the United States the murder rate is five per 100,000. He explains that a more significant reason for mass migration to the United States is hunger. Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador have experienced a drought that has lasted decades. Last September, it was estimated that 2.8 million Central American residents were struggling to feed themselves. The international relief organization called Save the Children say that conditions will worsen unless aid is increased. To illustrate the problem further, Nicaragua’s government was desperate enough to tell their people to eat iguanas.
People living in desperate conditions don’t get up one morning and decide to leave their culture, extended family members, and put their lives in the hands of human smugglers to trek the desert for fun. They risk their lives for the hope of living a safe, hunger-free life.
Most United States immigrants, documented and undocumented, have lived five, ten, twenty or thirty years working hard, often undesirable jobs, paying taxes, and educating their children in public schools to become good American citizens. Why do we consider the civil crime of crossing the border worse than the crime of rape? I say this because the statute of limitation for rape is ten years while a person who has crossed the border without documentation can be hunted down and thrown in jail even after living peacefully in our country twenty, thirty or even forty years. Why do we separate families, by sending the parents of American born children to the country of their origin?
If we were a Christian society, we would acknowledge our part to global warming and change our immigration laws to be more open; allowing entry for political, endangered, and hungry immigrants.
Peg Coffey
Fayetteville