14 Comments
User's avatar
Arkansas Blue's avatar

Shame, shame, shame on the current "administration" and all those who voted for it.

M A Schreck's avatar

You’re absolutely correct. Preventing refugees from stepping onto US soil and presenting their pleas for refugee status is horrible. It lacks empathy. It lacks compassion.

In addition. It is a “racist” policy because not everyone is being prevented. Trump is allowing White South Africans to apply as refugees from alleged racial discrimination and threats. At the same time, Trump is terminating TPS - temporary protection status — for Somalis. Haitians, and other non-white refugees.

I believe that the Jewish refugees on the M.S.St.Louis were not considered “white people” AT THAT TIME — such was the claim of the KKK and other US white supremacist groups at that time. Even today, there are groups that consider Jewish people to be “mud people.”

So whether the policy is based on racism or a simple lack of compassion — or BOTH — the Trump policy in the Al Otro Lado case should be rejected.

patricia's avatar

OMG...is it possible we suck and always have ?! DESPITE ALL OUR LOFTIES

Nadine Bangerter's avatar

How very sad so many ignore the lesson before us.

James's avatar

We have, in our history, sometimes failed to live up to the ideals for which we claim to stand. Examples abound, but until recently, we could talk about it and at least try to improve. Face it. We're not perfect. Never have been. But the effort to form a more perfect union used to be our Lodestar.

Not now. Our history is being sanitized. No improvement necessary.

Santayana was right, I'm afraid.

Ma's avatar

One more time where I am (still) free to write, god damn america. We are so terribly stupid most of the time. Now the orange mussolini will guarantee that we deserve that moniker forever - stupid country, evil country, hateful country, vengeful country, racist country, unworthy country, pitiful excuse of a country. We were always this. Somehow we had some magical disguise. The orange mussolini has stripped our disguise and our nakedness has revealed our utter unworthiness. I have crawled out of deep holes. Together we can do this. See you Saturday, sign in hand, country in heart, be strong, we can do this :)

Barbara's avatar

Who we are as a country at this point is morally bankrupt. This issue will hardly matter since people who *do* set foot in this country and ask for help, wait for it, follow rules written long before this administration...those people will be kidnapped, sexually abused, starved, shackled, beaten, and treated abominably.

Irena's avatar

The tragedy of the St. Louis is enshrined in the Jewish collective memory. Today I am caught between two difficult facts. One is the tragedy of the millions, if not countless, political refugees that stream in and out of all parts of the world. The other is the need for nations to limit how many people can enter. We have not learned yet how to have a working immigration process, with enough funding for a responsive court system. I think all nations where people try to enter are overwhelmed.

James P Ricciardi's avatar

We will have agree to disagree. My first vote for president was for George McGovern. I have never voted for a Republican for president in my life.

James P Ricciardi's avatar

If you are going blame the current asylum issue on Trump and deprive Chavez of his unearned accolades then be honest and admit it was FDR who turned away the Jewish refugee ship and put US citizens of Japanese ancestry in prison camps during WWII.

James's avatar

I think both of those facts are quite well-known. No "admission" necessary.

James P Ricciardi's avatar

They may be well known nut his reputation has paid no price for them. He is universally ranked as the 3rd best president and treated like a god like figure.

James's avatar

Disagree completely. His reputation has suffered for years. He was accused of knowing about Pearl Harbor in advance. He cheated on his wife. Etc.etc. I just don't think we can totally cancel the guy who also gave us Social Security and the financial protections that prevented another Depression until the Republicans and Bill Clinton repealed some of them.

Nor do I think you can totally cancel the guy who wrote the Declaration of Independence, or Washington, whose best contribution was a little thing called the peaceful transfer of power. Yet they were also slave holders. Nobody is forgetting that.

And Progressives don't make gods of human beings. That's the Republicans.

ira lechner's avatar

Please describe in much more detail exactly how we bar people from even petitioning for entry?

Many thanks.