The USA
Recently there was a massive demonstration in Minneapolis in the USA about the problem of immigration. It turned into a battleground with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers (ICE) . The President had ordered a crackdown on immigration and the ICE officers had forced their way into the city with guns and gas to control it. In the process of this, they shot and killed 2 American citizens and spread gas all over the city.
It was the 5th major city to be treated like this but the response of the people was very different. They responded in a very angry fashion in support of their immigrants.
The 2 citizens killed were a young woman called Renee Nicole Good and a young man called Alex Pretti, a care worker.
It is clear from this that the ICE officers were shooting indiscriminately and spraying gas everywhere. Trump has had a huge recruitment drive of ICE officers in order to attack more immigrants. These men are untrained, armed to the teeth and violent.
They are even attacking their own citizens. But the people are fighting back. They would not accept the attitude of these officers and they were determined to stand up for their immigrants in their city. They would not agree with the government because they had a humane attitude towards their immigrants.
They were very aware of their own history that the USA is a country made up of immigrants and over the centuries they have made America rich and powerful, sometimes not in very nice ways, like slavery,gangsterism and racism. But the people of Minneapolis were not like that and stood up for the new immigrants that have made their way to America and have made them feel welcome.
They are against their President who has pledged the largest deportation of undocumented migrants. This awful president and his government call them “criminal illegal aliens”. Many ignorant Americans, not like these wonderful people of Minneapolis, have been posting pictures of immigrants “ allegedly committing child sex crimes and gang offences.” Independent organisations have proved that 75% of them are completely innocent. The US government says that anyone without paper documentation makes people criminals. Legal experts do not agree with this. They are mostly families and children caught up in this awful moment.
An American film maker called Michael Moore, who covers social and political topics, made a very good film many years ago about American borders. The Canadians who are mostly white are at one border and the Mexicans who are mostly brown are at the other one. He chose a few Canadians who dressed up as ducks, turkeys etc and arrived where they danced back and forth the American border very easily.
He then filmed at the Mexican border where there was barbed wire and now a wall. However hard he tried his Mexican friends could not enter the USA. It was actually quite shocking. In recent times, Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada, has come out very strongly against Trump.
The UK
First of all, as I have said many times before , you are not illegal without documentation, you are an asylum seeker. You are only illegal if you are taken to court and the judge says that you cannot stay in this country. Even then, you can appeal against this judgement and you are not illegal until all the appeals have been denied and that can take quite a while.
Now let us look at Crowborough and the problem at the Stradey Park Hotel which are very similar. There have been a dozen demonstrations in Crowborough already. Once local people knew that there would be asylum seekers coming even though they were just 27 men and they would be placed at a training camp, the locals were outraged.
As at Stradey park, the locals insisted that the men were dangerous and would rape local women and so forth. These men had families and had come over to find jobs and try to make a living. As the saying goes, “you are here because we were there,” forcing them to live under our awful British Empire. This is why most of them speak English .
The hatred shown to these people is absolutely horrendous and they seem to have no sense of shame about it.
We, in Britain, often sneer at the Americans but the people of Minneapolis stood up and fought for their immigrants and they were facing guns and gas but they still stood up and were counted even though two of them were shot dead.
At least in Britain we do not have to face guns. We should be grateful for that. The people in Crowborough held a meeting with the Home Office and were outraged because they were housing “illegal immigrants”. INCORRECT! Our people have got to get the wording right. I keep repeating this, but, dear readers, you do have to learn this and be accurate. THEY ARE ASYLUM SEEKERS, GUYS !
Voltaire, the French philosopher and writer, once said,
“I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend with my life the right for you to say it.”
Although I personally do not agree with these shameful anti-immigrant attitudes, I do try to go along with what Voltaire says because in my heart I agree with him. It makes sense about free speech but at the same time it is a very difficult doctrine to follow when you see the awful violence of the Nazis, and general hatred and prejudice of neighbours around me. It is the same with “Turn the other cheek “ and “love thy neighbour”. Again very difficult to follow but if we did, what a wonderful world this would be, as the song goes.
When I am at demonstrations against racism and I look at the people I am facing, their faces full of hatred, it makes me feel very sad.
Could we not truly strive to make this world a better place with love and understanding?
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Llanelli Standard and Red Brand Media.
