“La Sagrada Familia” by Kelly Latimore. Courtesy image Christian artist Kelly Latimore of St. Louis Missouri depicts the Holy Family; he says “migrants and refugees are images of God in plain sight.”
Migration is the movement of people from one place to another to settle in a new location. Migration can be voluntary or involuntary, and can occur for a variety of different reasons, ranging from economic to environmental or even social issues.
Factors that cause migration
Economic push factors in migration are related to poor labor standards, high unemployment rates, and the overall health of a country’s economy. Pull factorsinclude higher salaries, better employment opportunities, a higher standard of living and educational opportunities.
The Politics of Migration
The human rights of migrants around the world need protection. The problem is complicated by the different politics in each nation.
On Monday December 18th, the Republican Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, signed 3 bills into law that constitute a direct challenge to Federal asylum laws. While the stage is set for court challenges by immigration advocates and human rights activists; the urgency needed in finding practical humane solutions has become starkly apparent. This demonstrates that the “front door” method of migration is not working because it seems easier for many to come in by the “back door”. The truth is we are all migrants living in a messy world of push and pull; however rights both Human & Political on both sides of the Southern US border and around the world are being violated without a workable solution. This occurs at a time when the US Congress is in an extended session the week before Christmas to negotiate border policy tied to war aid for Ukraine, Israel and democratic support for Taiwan in the face of Chinese military pressure. 2023 has seen an unprecedented rise in the number of migrants pushed by factors such as war, criminal violence, and natural disasters just as they are pulled to specific social, political and economic hopes in global regions such as Europe and North America that stand for human rights and equality of opportunity.
PERSPECTIVES in CURRENT EVENTS: An EPIPHANY is a revelation or new way of seeing.
“By transcending our biases, listening, and having inner silence about our convictions, our inherited traditions, or our favorite ideas, we can become open to the patterns of work, knowledge and experience we may not have seen in the other or buried in ourselves.”
Kelly Latimore
Liberals and Conservatives stand against compromise due to the political differences and perspectives siding with each political party. Each side of the party has their own viewpoints due to being bound up by their own insights. Liberals and Democrats side with the Left side of perspectives while Conservatives and Republicans side with perspectives from the Right side. Politics tend to favor whatever side they believe in and find a way to fight, as left and right are opposed, they are more willing to fight than to compromise. Conservatives want to protect what they have, like in the US, they want to keep traditions, legal rights, and divide things they think aren’t right for the country. Liberals are more of “people pleasers” in the sense standing for greater equality in human rights and don’t think of things in a moralistic sense of right or wrong. A liberal will often want to protect the migrants human rights and a conservative will often want to protect citizens civil rights. Both political perspectives have value; rather than blaming the other side for the problem, what is necessary for real political solutions is an understanding of the different perspective that leads to moderation and compromise.
No good answers for Biden as voters recoil over border crossings; President Joe Biden finds himself caught between the right and the left, searching for answers on immigration ahead of the 2024 election.
WASHINGTON — Worried about the large numbers of people crossing the border from Mexico, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas went to White House officials with some advice: Get the word out about all the people the Biden administration has been deporting in hopes of deterring undocumented migrants from entering the country.
Joe Biden’s advisers weren’t sold. “They said it would anger the immigration advocates — it would anger their folks on that,” Cuellar, a Democrat, said in an interview.
The Government of the state of Texas is using deterrence in the form of building walls, barriers, floating buoys in the river and new laws that make illegal entry a criminal activity. The Government of the state of California is more liberal than the conservative Republicans in Texas. Conservatives are blaming the liberal government of President Biden for the increased number of migrants at the southern border. Republican governors have sent migrants in their states to democratic liberal cities like Washington D.C. , New York City, and Chicago. – HL
The difference between deportation and asylum is a difference between punishment and protection. The punishment of deportation should be a result of criminal activity. The protection of human rights through asylum should be a result of social justice. –DH
USA has a record number of deportations
Nov. 16, 2023, 11:50 PM EST
Estados Unidos ha deportado por aire en los últimos siete meses a más de 380,000 migrantes, que no lograron demostrar una base legal para permanecer en el país, informó este jueves el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS, en inglés).
En un comunicado, el DHS explicó que varios vuelos partieron este jueves desde Estados Unidos hacía India, Ecuador, Perú, Venezuela y países de Centroamérica con migrantes deportados. LINK
Migrants cross the Rio Grande from Mexico near El Paso, Texas. A new law makes illegal entry into Texas from a foreign country a state crime. It also authorizes a state judge to order someone to return to Mexico after their arrest. Julian Aguilar/The Texas Newsroom
Texas illegal entry law will test states’ powers on immigration and border control
Due to the increase in illegal entries into the country through the territory of the state of Texas, authorities and public forces such as the police or the senate have been forced to take measures in this regard by their own hands as their complaints are ignored and they do not take action. the necessary measures.
The United States-Mexico border is the world’s deadliest land route for migrants, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) says, with at least 686 deaths and disappearances recorded there last year.
In Mexican cities across the border, shelters that support migrants are overwhelmed by the number of people seeking help. This is happening in other places, including Mexico City, where authorities recently closed down a derelict encampment that nonetheless was crucial for the survival of more than 800 people. Shelters’ lack of capacity to provide for all the migrants’ needs explains, in part, the terrible conditions migrants face in Matamoros, Ciudad Juárez and Tijuana. This is not the shelters’ fault. They are doing the best they can with very little government support.
According to the International Boundary and Water Commission, the continental border then follows the middle of the Rio Grande.
By the hundreds of thousands, Central American families and children without their parents migrated to the southwest border. They were pushed by the threat of violence and by economic hardships. They were pulled in by the chance at a good job in a booming U.S. economy.
El cierre del puesto de control que comparten los estados de Sonora, México, y Arizona, Estados Unidos, en Sonoyta-Lukeville provoca afectación en las relaciones comerciales, turísticas y sociales entre ambos países, reconocen las autoridades mexicanas. Cientos de migrantes esperaban la reapertura de este paso fronterizo para reanudar su solicitud de asilo ante autoridades estadounidenses.
my opinion and my question;
They should not prevent emigrants who want to get ahead in this country from entering the United States since they do not have a good economy in their country, the salary is not good in their countries and that is why they are looking for a better life in the United States to get ahead
“Refugees: The Holy Family” by Kelly Latimore. Courtesy image
Refugees from war;
The internally displaced in the Israel-Hamas War
Since Oct. 7, As its ground invasion pushes further south to where millions of civilians are currently sheltering, Azaiza a 24 year old photojournalist has warned that he may not be able to continue his work for much longer.
“I no longer have any hope of survival,” Bisan Owda, a 25-year-old Gazan filmmaker, told her more than 3 million followers in a recent post.
Gaza’s journalists will continue to bear the burden of reporting on what is happening there until the point that they no longer can.
Those who have been able to enter the Strip since Oct. 7 have primarily done so by embedding with the Israeli military—a process that comes with certain conditions, including a requirement that the military be allowed to review all materials and footage prior to publication.
This most recent icon of “Christ in the rubble” speaks to the current situation in Israel Christmas 2023
More than 1.4 Million people in Gaza have been internally displaced. With over 689,000 in 150 sheltering facilities of the UNRWA.
Over ⅔ of Gaza’s population has been children. That is over 800,000 people who are children (18 and younger). Around 220 schools in Gaza have been destroyed by airstrikes; which is about 40% of all schools in Gaza. From all these violence the children of Gaza’s health and mental health have been declining so badly that some will be left with lifelong symptoms/diagnoses. There are horrifying attacks happening to these children every day. Along with all the debris from this “conflict” the children who do survive have to now be able to adapt to the ruins of Gaza. Along with their agriculture being ruined to the debris and chemicals being spread.
Post 9/11 wars in Africa, the Middle East, and the Philippines
Over 38 million people in the war zones of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya, and Syria have been displaced, either abroad or within their own countries, and are living in grossly inadequate conditions. This is a very conservative estimate and the figure could be as high as 49-60 million.
Many displaced persons, usually poorer migrants who lack the finances necessary to travel abroad, have had to relocate within their countries. Internal displacement is associated with some of the worst health outcomes, increasing people’s vulnerability to the negative impacts of loss of employment, inability to access public services such as clean drinking water, environmental contamination, and reverberating trauma and violence. In Afghanistan as of March 2022, there were approximately four million internally displaced people, almost 60% of whom were children under age 18. These IDPs experience malnutrition and mental health challenges and lack access to healthcare, with particularly serious consequences for maternal and infant mortality.
Held every four years, the Global Refugee Forum (GRF) is the largest international conference on refugee issues. The 2023 GRF will take place in Geneva, Switzerland from 13 to 15 December and will seek to focus the international discussion on solutions rather than crises. Co-hosted by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the Government of Switzerland, the forum has been co-convened by Colombia, France, Japan, Jordan and Uganda. It aims to focus a range of actors on finding solutions to the plight of refugees, and to support the objectives of the Global Compact on Refugees as affirmed by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2018. Participants – including states, the private sector, international financial institutions, UN agencies, humanitarian and development organizations, cities and local authorities, NGOs, refugee-led organizations, faith groups and others – will take stock of the progress made since the first GRF in 2019 and make concrete pledges and contributions to improve the lives of 36.4 million refugees around the world.
UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, works to protect and assist those fleeing war and persecution. Since 1950, we have helped tens of millions of people find safety and rebuild their lives. With your support, we can restore hope for many more. Read more at https://www.unhcr.org/
Responding to the most critical priorities, UNHCR has provided food, shelter, cash, hygiene and sanitary kits and other lifesaving assistance to refugees from my country and all around the world. – Madina
At the heart of the Christmas story there is a recognition that we are all migrants; The Holy Family became refugees in Egypt as they fled the threat of violence from King Herod.
