Watch comedian John Oliver explain what the Repubs want when they talk about mass deportations of immigrants.
The US immigration system is broken
Lots of people—including the White House Press Secretary—have claimed that all immigrants that are undocumented committed a crime when they entered the United States. This couldn’t be farther from the truth! Millions of people come to the US legally every year, and most have strict limits to how long they can stay. If they aren’t able to submit the right document, or experience a delay casused by the US Immigration and Customs Enfrocement agency (ICE), then they may no longer have valid documents allowing them to stay in the US.
That’s one of the things we mean when we say that our immigration system is broken. The US government says there are options for people to extend their stay in the US legally, but because of inadequate staff and mismanagement at ICE, it could take years to get your case resolved.
We are a nation of refugees
Another reason we say that “our immigration system is broken” is because the US was built as a place for refugees—also called asylum-seekers.
A lot of people have only heard the word “asylum” used to describe institutions where we used to send people living with mental illness.
But the word “asylum” actually just means a place of refuge and security.
If you live in a country where your family is at heightened risk of being murdered or arrested by corrupt leaders, you have a right to flee and find a place where you and your family are safe.
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights says in Article 14 that, “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.”
The first people to live here spread across the Americas and developed more and more ways to create refuges and safety for their families and their tribes.
Many of the people that came to colonize the Americas had left their native country as refugees/seeking asylum. They were escaping wars, religious persecution, desperate poverty and corrupt governments that saw them as pawns, not humans.
Millions of people that have come to the United States arrived here because of the same reasons. Their country wanted to arrest and execute them because of their religious beliefs or sexuality. Their community was barely surviving and they refused to watch their children die of starvation.
Being a refuge—an asylum—is what this country has always been about. When the French government sent us the gift of the State of Liberty, we inscribed on it famous words from the poetry of Emma Lazarus.
To attack immigrants is one of the most unAmerican things someone could do. To use it as a cover for racism is downright evil.
