I’ll be honest. I did not watch the State of the Union Address. I have watched the bits and pieces that I could stomach. I did not need to watch something that was going to be treated as a Trump rally, with Republican fawners yelling, “Four More Years.” My opinion, fig leaves aside, is that Nancy Pelosi should have delivered that speech, just as she should be leading this country because this President and his entire administration should be convicted and removed. Thus, the reason that our country is in dire need of a reckoning; a non-violent rising-up of people with convictions that are not power-driven.
One of the groups that I am a part of is Witness at the Border, and we are exactly that. We witness and expose what is going on with people who are encamped in Mexico through a program inaccurately named Migrant Protection Protocols, about which I have already written. There is another misrepresentation at the border; the monument that is visible when you cross from Mexico to the U.S. that reads, “Welcome to The United States of America”. Let’s face it; there are so many deceptions that we are being conned by that it is impossible to capture them all in one writing.
Another one of the misnamed programs that is virtually invisible to the American public is called “Prompt Asylum Claim Review (PACR). According to the Robert Moore of the Washington Post, in an article dated October 24, 2019, PACR is a “secretive program here that aims to speed up the deportation of asylum-seeking migrants after they cross the U.S.-Mexico border.” There is no time for a real review; attorneys are not fully able to meet with clients because they are being held in centers overseen by CBP, and the review time is 10 days.
This is supposed to be a secretive program. All involved are trying to hide planes because Witnesses have been at the airports watching, in the wee hours of the morning, as busloads of people are brought in. They are cuffed in 5-point shackles and loaded onto commercial planes that are modified in such a way as to transport prisoners. They are then flown to Honduras or Guatemala, from which many of them are from.
As has been stated many times, most people are fleeing their countries because they are in danger. The cartels in their countries run everything, including law enforcement. If you are not in with the cartels, not only is your life in danger; so is your livelihood. Most of the people are trying to get to family that is already here. They are not here to take anything from U.S. citizens. They are being punished for trying to seek asylum the legal way.
As for the SOTU, I find it sickening the approval numbers that are rising for a President who would sign off on this atrocity. I cry for the asylum-seekers and I mourn the loss of conscience in the United States. We need people in Congress who act from a place of human decency because this President will not. We need a government that understands that, in times like these, lowering the bar of humanity is not the answer. In the meantime, we need to deal with what we are doing to our brothers and sisters who are daily being victimized in the name of the United States. If you are fed up with that, It is time to call your MoC’s, continually and with passion. We are not a dictatorship…..yet.
