3/8/23

By Josh Rubin

Word trickles out to us that the Homeland security folks have a table onto which they are loading tools and schemes to deal with the migration of people in our hemisphere to the frontiers of United States, notably the southern border. They are lining up possible approaches to substitute for the scam called Title 42, which claimed the right to expel migrants, no questions asked, based on the myth that they would carry COVID to us, to one of the most infected nations on the planet.

The Title 42 scam is wearing thin. And politics being what they are, and migrants being the convenient scapegoat for demagoguery, the aim of our policies is not toward planetary justice, but rather to guard the flanks of the party in power, by converting the huddled masses to straw men. The subtext—only sub under democrats, proud and out loud from the right wing—is: what’s the best way to keep them out? Despair, ye, of any understanding of the world that acknowledges the rights of people to move to where they can find a living! How naive can we be?

So, given the wide acceptance of everyday injustice, the table is set with the possibilities. Like lately, the travel ban, which builds in the presumption that claims of any need for rescue from a wasted world are not valid. Easier that way to skedaddle them back across the line. But this time with a black mark on their records, one that might land a repeat offender in prison. For the crime of homelessness, I remind those trying to follow this rambling text.

But they know people will still come, will still try. What do we do with those, especially the families? Because sometimes the sight of families being mistreated pokes a little hole in the “invaders” rationale. They just don’t look very scary….

So the very open minded folks at Homeland Security are putting family prisons on the table. Whole families locked in cells in privately run prisons (see the dollar signs?). Because that makes them harder to see. I might add, because of who we are: harder to witness.

What else is on that table? Majorkas told us in an interview that he wants all, even the worst of solutions on the table. Imagine with me, if you will, some of the solutions to deal with “undesirables” that creative, outside the box, thinkers have come up with in the last century…

All to accomplish something that should never be our goal: to turn away those who come to our door in need.