Immigration Atrocities

Immigration Atrocities Must Stop

Separating Children from their Parents is Inhumane

The Trump Republican Party’s assault on basic human dignity and respect for the family continues unabated. Every time I think they cannot sink any lower on the depravity scale, they take it further down by miles.

Ours is a country made great and strong by immigrants who came to our shores seeking freedom from religious or political persecution and a better life for their families. My first immigrant ancestors came from Germany in the 1700s and settled in upper New York State. They farmed and became prosperous. They joined the Revolutionary Army and fought with Washington to repel British rulers and undo unfair taxes. My wife’s Brewster ancestors came to Plymouth, Massachusetts on the Mayflower and stood up for religious freedom that came to be enshrined in our founding documents.

Wave after wave of immigrants came to America and helped build our cities, railroads, canals, and many other mechanisms of economic growth. Many who came spoke no English and had no education. They took the jobs no one else who had already gained a measure of security would take. Those immigrants brought their families to a better home than they left.

One of the dark sides of the immigration epic found its way into our history when those who came before and gained some success looked down on some of those who came later as less worthy or less deserving. The newcomers had to knock down these barriers and show their worth before becoming accepted by those several generations off the boat. Sometimes they had to organize into unions to make sure the doors stayed open to continued upward mobility.

Another dark side of our immigration history is found in the treatment of people of color by the Anglo-European majority. The involuntary immigration of those stolen from Africa aside, immigrants from Asia and South and Central America, with skin tones yellow to brown, faced additional hurdles. They tended to settle in Chinatowns and Little Havanas in major cities, seeking the protection of racial isolation.

All of the injustices visited on these later immigrants, pale in comparison to the newest atrocities being imposed upon immigrant families who seek safety and a better life by the Trump administration. It is made worse by the acquiescence of those Republicans in Congress who have the power to stop them.

Following the historical lead from dictators past, immigration authorities are now forcibly separating young children from their parents when the family units cross the border without proper permission. Those now effectively orphaned are sent far from their parents with no way of staying connected and housed in hastily converted empty big box stores set up with wire cages usually found in animal shelters. Their parents are not told where their children are being held and have no way to communicate with them. The damage inflicted upon these young humans by this treatment will stay with them for the rest of their lives. They and we can take little solace in the heartless solution offered by Attorney General Sessions, “if you don’t want to lose your children, don’t come here illegally.”

Not content with just tearing families apart, Sessions recently slammed the immigration door shut to many from south of our borders by announcing that fleeing from domestic or gang violence will no longer be accepted as a legitimate reason to seek asylum in the United States. The realities of domestic and gang violence in parts of Central and South America are well documented. Those who resist or fail to assist have legitimate fear of violent reprisals and have every reason to flee. 

These immigrants, along with many who come from Mexico without proper visas, are willing to roll up their sleeves and work in our restaurant kitchens, dairy farms, vegetable growing operations, and other occupations requiring long workdays and back breaking labor. They take jobs that most already here never apply to take. Why we shun people willing to work hard and become productive future citizens baffles me.

We have a representative in Congress who plays a central role in overseeing these and other immigration policies and has the power to bring a much more humane cast to how we treat those who come to our shores. Senator Ron Johnson chairs the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. He is in a unique position to stop the family destroying atrocities and establish legislative policy on who may seek asylum. Contact Sen. Johnson at 414-276-7282 and tell him to stand up to the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

We are engaged in behavior equal to the horrors of the slave trade we fought a civil war to abolish. It must stop.

Reject White Nationalism

White Supremacy Prevents Democracy

White nationalists recently marched at night in Virginia holding flaming torches while chanting racially charged and support for Russia slogans. The historic reference to Klu Klux Clan nighttime, torchlight marches was not lost on anyone familiar with America’s racist history. 

One of the Virginia marchers’ objections was removal of Confederate war hero statues from public areas in several Southern states.  Others phoned death threats to the crane companies employed in New Orleans to take down Jefferson Davis’ statue. The crane operators had to work at night and wear masks while taking down the statuary for their own protection.

Let that sink in.

Trump’s thinly veiled campaign plea to white supremacists, “Make America Great Again,” followed by his open embrace of unabashed white nationalists Steve Bannon, Sen. Jeff Sessions and others has unleashed a wave of racially motivated violence and protests across the country starting during his campaign rallies and continuing into his presidency.  His appeal to those who hated Barack Obama for no other reasons than his mixed race heritage and temerity to have been the leader of the free world for eight years was clear.

Jeff Sessions’ appointment as Attorney General and much of their subsequent shared agenda continues to exacerbate white fear of darker skinned fellow Americans. White racists are being openly encouraged to lash out publicly against those perceived as different and inferior, even after being shamed in Facebook videos. Videos from Wal-Mart checkout lines, public beach confrontations and stand your ground shootings by fearful white citizens and even police officers are much too common.

Those who denigrate fellow citizens because of perceived superficial differences seem to be easy prey for weak-kneed politicians who happily whip up racial frenzy instead of thoughtfully addressing real problems facing all of America’s citizenry. Senseless calls to deport or imprison those with different skin tones, foreign sounding names, culturally different clothing choices or non-Christian religious practices further inflame white fears and baseless notions of white superiority.

Travel bans unconstitutionally aimed at those who believe in Islam and come from some Middle Eastern countries, but not others, evidence Trump’s discriminate hatred of Muslims without a shred of proof they pose a danger to the homeland. Federal trial and appellate courts rightfully look to Trump’s campaign promises as evidence of his illegal racial and religious motivations in proposing the bans. Many of his supporters use the bans as a license to harass and intimidate people who look “Muslim,” even though they may just as easily be Christians, Jews or Hindu.

This imaginary fear mongering has found its way into our public policy in many other disturbing ways. Cuts to urban public education, failure to pass much needed infrastructure funding, get tough on crime policy pronouncements, frenzy over gun rights, opposition to sensible firearm restrictions, restrictions on local political control, new voter suppression laws, gerrymandered political districts, attacks on reproductive choice, restrictions on public health policy, environmental regulation rollbacks and even foreign policy decisions all have roots in white nationalistic superiority beliefs.

America is already great, in large measure because we have historically overcome notions of white Anglo-Saxon Christian superiority in favor of inclusion and diversity. We are stronger and project a more vibrant and creative image to the world when we embrace and celebrate our differences. We are better when we are kinder to our neighbors and the rest of those who share in the riches our fragile planet can provide. Divide and conquer politics diminishes our greatness and weakens the American fabric, especially when motivated by racial animus.

Trump’s pathetic calls for an end to words that incite violence will continue to ring hollow until he purges the ranks of his political appointees of the white superior nationalists and reverses the policies he and they have implemented to forward their mutually shared agendas.

Those of us from white Anglo-Saxon backgrounds take for granted our privileged position in American society and political life. That needs to change in favor of actively embracing a more diverse and inclusive world-view if we are to survive as a democracy. Authoritarian imposition of white superiority will never succeed and is a sure path to the end of the American democratic experiment.

All of us need to take a hard look at the actions our government is taking and hold those who enact them accountable when racial or religious bias is shown to motivate changes. We must step up and demand that our representatives adopt race neutral policies and laws that do not favor any religion over another.

Waring R. Fincke is a retired lawyer and serves as a court appointed guardian for the elderly and disabled.

Never Again

Never Another Kristallnacht

Evil will not prevail

There is an old saying, “those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” We are entering an era where our national government will ignore the lessons of history and all of us will be doomed to repeat them. I fear it will not end well.

Donald Trump’s campaign, including the candidate himself, embraced the spurious notions that white people are superior to those with different skin tones, that Christianity is the preferred religion and that physical violence against those “others” as well as those who dare to disagree is acceptable. Threats and intimidation are approved and used to try and silence critics.

Let me take you back to Germany on the night of November 9-10, 1938. On that night, while government officials looked on but did nothing to stop it, members of the German SA Paramilitary and German civilians systematically sought out Jewish businesses, synagogues, homes and hospitals. They smashed windows, looted, arrested many Jewish men and killed hundreds. Buildings were demolished with sledgehammers. Jews were moved to concentration camps. The pretext for these extreme actions was the earlier assassination of a German diplomat by a Jew living in Paris and later by claims that Jews were inferior to Aryans and could not be allowed to marry pure Germans. All of this was preceded by systematic government sponsored propaganda that blamed Jews for all of Germany’s ills. And so began a purposeful and public “pogrom” to rid the German state of Jews.

That night became known as “Kristallnacht,” or the night of the broken glass, from the shards of the windows that filled the streets. Incidents recently reported here in the Daily News and others are apparently the beginnings of our own “Kristallnacht.”

Casa Guadalupe is a respected non-profit in West Bend that helps Spanish speaking immigrant residents learn English and American culture. It is completely apolitical. It does, however, provide needed services to people of the same ethnicity Donald Trump deemed rapists and criminals. Many of those immigrants work on our local dairy farms and in our restaurants. They play a vital role in our local economy. Someone, in the dead of night, put rocks through front windows of Casa Guadalupe’s office on North Main Street not once, not twice, but three times since late November.

If these were isolated incidents, it might be written off as just kids creating mischief. Unfortunately, Casa Guadalupe’s window damage was preceded by similar attacks on the homes of two people who had the temerity to display large “Hillary for President” signs in their yards during the recent election. They too had rocks put through their windows and dents put in their siding. Democrats have had signs stolen and damaged in past elections, but never have peoples’ homes been damaged. These are law-abiding, tax paying West Bend citizens whose property was damaged as payback for disagreeing with the community’s political majority. Just think if someone had been sleeping in those rooms as rocks came through the windows.

This behavior is unacceptable. Damage to property is never appropriate to advance a political agenda. There is another old saying that fits here as well. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men (and women) to do nothing.”

Law enforcement still looks for those who caused the damages. No arrests have been reported.  Cowards who break windows with rocks under cover of night cannot be allowed to continue. Those responsible have most likely not kept silent about their “good deeds” in defense of the empire. If we are not to descend into the anarchy that faced German communities in the lead up to World War II, the good people of our city need to speak up and report the rumors and leads to the police. Let the justice system do what it does to correct illegal behavior.

Our city leaders have been strangely silent as these attacks were reported to local police and reported in this paper. Where is their outrage and condemnation of these cowardly attacks on our citizens’ property and a respected community institution? Silence equals complicity and clearly sends a message that fascism in pursuit of ideological and racial purity is the new norm.

As a society and community we will be noted in history by how well we treated each other and took care of those who find themselves on the fringes. West Bend is better than allowing cowards to break windows in the dark. At least, I still have hope that we are and that we will not experience another “Kristallnacht.” It is up to all of us.

Waring R. Fincke is a retired attorney and vice-chair of the Democratic Party of Washington County.