These past few weeks, American news sites have reported pictures of Texas Border Patrol mistreating Haitian refugees that have shown up at the Texan/Mexican border to seek asylum. Many have been horrified at the treatment of the refugees, including people from all over the political spectrum. I personally think that the border situation is tragic. It reminds me of New Orleans Katrina refugees, except that the Haitian government is a lot less stable than the New Orleans local government and Louisiana’s state government. 

Immigration is a very complex issue, and I will not pretend to know all of the details of it. Regardless, I am passionate about treating refugees, immigrants, and other people that are seeking asylum at the border with fairness and decency. I do not think that refugees and immigrants should be punished or separated from their families when they arrive at the border and seek asylum, because not only is seeking asylum legal (and I think it should be), but because we have a moral obligation to not separate innocent children that had no choice in their parents’ decision to seek asylum.

As many people have, I have seen pictures of the Border Patrol that have been brutally mistreating refugees at the border, which I think is horrendous. Biden needs to take action to stop this horrific treatment of these people, as well as the Texas state government, and figure out a way to safely and humanely house them in asylum centers. His (Biden’s) slowness and lack of preparation is very frustrating to me and to a lot of other people that lean left in their political views. Additionally, Biden’s reluctance to take any action to make existing camps have better conditions is appalling. He has been very slow on a lot of his campaign promises, including the one to protect immigrants. It is sad to see him not reverse a lot of Trump-era policies on separating children from their parents in detention centers, as well as the fact that he has not improved the health and safety conditions in detention centers.  I do acknowledge that both political parties are at fault historically and currently for the mistreatment of people in border detention centers.

I do not know enough about immigration policies to have a strong opinion on how exactly to process asylum seekers, or immigrants that stay in their home country while their application is being reviewed. I do not have a strong opinion on deportation, unless it comes to D.A.C.A. (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipients, because I believe that the recipients, who are mostly children, should not be deported. I believe this because I do not think that they should be forced to relocate to a country in which they most likely have never lived, or have only lived in when they were a baby. Also, they had no choice in their parents taking them when immigrating. 

I do not believe in letting all undocumented people into the United States immediately. However, I do believe that the government needs to do a better job at being quicker in reviewing citizenship and Visa applications for asylum seekers, as many of the people who have applied spend several years waiting for approval to come into the country. 

I know that immigrants are often fleeing violence and instability in their home countries due to the United States’  invading and installing their own form of government in many Central American and Asian countries. Many Americans do not know about the United States’ military’s history when it comes to this, which may lead some people to make ignorant comments about Latin American immigrants and refugees.

Immigrants are brave to leave their country and seek a new life in the United States, and I believe that the United States is a country of immigrants and we have a responsibility to treat immigrants with fairness and justice. Refugees are fleeing violence from their home country, oftentimes in which the United States’ federal government and/or military has directly caused the instability in the countries of refugees. This is why I believe that we have an especially strong responsibility to treat refugees with fairness and with justice. 

There are ways to take action to help immigrants and refugees, and resources are down below:

•The Episcopal Church has an organization that helps refugees and immigrants: https://www.epicenter.org/migration/ 

•KIND (Kids in Need of Defense) is an organization that helps with providing an immigration attorney to children in court, who often do not have an immigration lawyer to represent them in court and are expected to somehow defend themselves in court:

https://supportkind.org/get-involved/give-to-kind/.

•There are also organizations that help approved refugees get settled into living here: https://linktr.ee/refugeeservicesoftexas.