Condemning the Present, Ignoring the Past
“Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”
-Martin Niemöller
72 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, the Office of the President of the United States has again betrayed American values and turned away thousands of people fleeing for their lives.
On January 27, the Trump Administration issued an Executive Order effectively banning all entry of nationals from Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, and Sudan for at least 90 days (Syrians seeking refuge are banned entry indefinitely). The order read that entry of nationals from any of these countries would be “…detrimental to the interests of the United States”, and a threat to national security. Indeed, this action reflects a large part of Trump’s campaign rhetoric, during which he frequently cited the need to protect the U.S. from terrorist attacks.
This is not the first time the U.S. has denied entry in the interest of self-preservation — amidst unsubstantiated fears of Nazi spies infiltrating the U.S. among refugees, the State Department and President Roosevelt denied thousands of Jewish people entry during World War II until late 1944. Similar fears and hysteria led to the internment of Japanese-Americans in February 1942, one of the darkest moments in the country’s history. Are we now travelling down the same harrowing path?
Hyperbole describing the danger nationals from the seven banned countries pose America’s security run amok as in the past — in fact, no fatal attacks in the U.S. on or since 9/11 have been attributed to nationals from any of the banned countries. Despite the truth and our grim history on this issue, Trump’s order has the potential to tear thousands of families apart, like that of American citizen Ahmed Mohammad Ahmed Ali, whose 12-year old Yemeni daughter is stranded in Djibouti and may be forced to return to a war-torn country. Cases such as Ali’s beg the question of whether Trump’s administration considered the human cost of his actions.
As an American with serious concerns about what we consider our core values, I urge you to look back at similar times in our past and ask yourself, ‘were we on the right side of history?’ Was it moral to turn away the MS St. Louis, subjecting all 937 passengers to the Holocaust? Did it reflect our core values as a country to deny Anne Frank and her family a safe haven? What do we gain by excluding the world’s most vulnerable an opportunity to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Do they not deserve the same opportunity at freedom our ancestors received?
We are a nation of immigrants. Let us not disgrace ourselves by refusing the persecuted.
** If you are an American citizen and resonated with this piece, please contact your Congressional representatives and let them know your stance on the issue. You can identify your representatives at www.whoismyrepresentative.com
