As politicians in the U.S. call for banning all Muslim newcomers, and in Europe plot to get rid of fleeing émigrés from the Middle East and Africa, the Obama administration ushered in a cruel New Year for refugees from Central America. Federal agents are rounding up these refugees for quick deportation, while unprecedented militarization is in motion on the southern border.
As Homeland Security boasts, it’s “the largest deployment of vehicles, aircraft, boats, and equipment along the southwest border in the 90-year history of the Border Patrol.”
What did the refugees from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador do to deserve this? Nothing, of course!
The responsibility for their plight lies mainly at Washington’s door. They are desperately seeking to escape the horrors of a U.S.-sponsored “war on drugs” that’s pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into corrupt and abusive security forces who are hooked up with organized crime. While the U.S. government sends them back to the suffering they are fleeing, it will make no effort to reverse the economic polices that have produced poverty and gang violence not only in Central America, but in the U.S. as well.
Don’t let Donald Trump and the right wing make all the noise — speak out for the humane treatment of refugees and the rights of all immigrants!
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