Immigration | United States
Like Boxcars in the Sky
Trump & Co step up deportations of Cameroonian and other African asylum seekers in flights operated by ICE contractor, Omni Air International
Remembering the SS St Louis
On May 13, 1939, more than 900 Jews set sail from Hamburg, Germany aboard the SS St Louis. With Hitler’s rise to power, ever-emboldened followers of Nazi ideology were confiscating Jewish homes and burning down synagogues and businesses. In the face of such hate crimes, the refugees determined to seek safe haven in the USA. They were prescient. The Nazi network of more than 1000 camps — from labor to liquidation — was already underway.
The exodus faced an unforeseen hurdle: Concepts such as ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘genocide’ had not yet been codified, much less defined. There was no Universal Declaration of Human Rights to provide them a legal claim to protection. The US had long-been a global beacon of hope, however, and many had family there. So they steered toward Florida via Cuba, then a temporary transit stop en route to the Land of the Free.
But the Cubans would not let them dock. And their unauthorized arrival in Florida was no less chilly, despite direct appeals to…
