3/5/20

By Lee Goodman

I don't know if there are really alligators in the ponds that dot this southernmost part of Texas, but I will heed the warning. Nothing compels me to go near the water.

But the asylum seekers who are stuck just outside Brownsville and at other border towns in Mexico may now have a compelling reason to risk a long journey full of danger. The 9th Circuit just ruled that as of March 12 they will have a new chance of getting into the U.S. On that day, the Trump administration's Remain in Mexico policy will no longer be in effect, because the temporary stay that the court had ordered dissolves and the injunction against the policy goes into effect.

However, for reasons that even lawyers don't agree upon or understand, this new chance at freedom and safety only applies to people who try to get into California or Arizona. Those states are in the 9th Circuit. People who live in tents outside Texas, which is in the 5th Circuit, and New Mexico, which is in the 10th , will have to decide whether to stay where they are or walk hundreds of miles north to try to get into the U.S.

They will be cautioned that even if they make it to their destinations, they may still not get in. The Trump administration will like ask the Supreme Court to intervene and undo the 9th Circuit's ruling. But the people who are fleeing dangers at home and who have endured life in unprotected, unofficial refugee camps along our border know that they have almost no chance of ever getting into the U.S. from where they now are, so many are likely to start walking. Who wouldn't choose hope?

I don't think the migrants will encounter alligators. But many hazards await them on their journey and great hardship continues for those who will stay behind. All they want is to be able to live in the same country that we live in, a privilege that most of us have enjoyed from birth and for which we have had to make no effort. Whether they walk or stay where they are, they will see the walls that we have erected to keep them out.