Protect the caravan! A pro life plea

All those Evangelicals who vote in lock step to protect life before considering any other salient issue affecting mankind, must take a stand in support of the growing caravan of migrants who are seeking asylum by  marching through treacherous terrain from Central America, mostly Honduras, to Texas.

Where are the pro-life Evangelicals?

Stretching for miles, 7,000-strong migrant caravan treks through stifling heat in southern Mexico by Kate Linthicum

A growing caravan of roughly 7,000 Central American immigrants continued its trek toward the United States on Sunday, blowing past Mexican police and immigration officials.

The group, which has swelled in size in recent days, set out before dawn on the only road out of the small Mexican border town of Ciudad Hidalgo. It arrived in the afternoon in the city of Tapachula, more than 20 miles away.

The migrants, nearly all from the poor and violent nation of Honduras, posed a growing political and humanitarian calamity for Mexico, which has come under intense pressure from President Trump to stop them.

On Friday, Mexican police used tear gas to block migrants from storming an official border crossing. But in the days since, Mexico has appeared unwilling to use force to stop the thousands of people who have illegally crossed the Suchiate River from Guatemala into Mexico and started walking north.

That may be in part because the migrants include hundreds of women and small children, some in strollers. It could also be because of the daunting size of the caravan, which stretched for at least two miles.

As the caravan headed north Sunday in the 90-degree heat, another group of roughly 1,500 migrants waited on the Guatemalan side of the river, hoping to enter Mexico legally.

Authorities said more than 1,000 caravan members already have entered legally and applied for refugee status in Mexico and are being detained while their applications are processed.

The migrants left Honduras more than a week ago and began arriving several days ago at the Guatemalan border town of Tecun Uman, just across the river from Ciudad Hidalgo.

Most say they intend to cross into the United States, not seek refuge in Mexico. Some complain that they were unable to find work in Honduras. Others say they are fleeing violence or political repression there and hope to apply for asylum in the U.S.

Kate Linthicum @katelinthicum
I’m only just realizing the massive scale of this caravan as they march north into Mexico. It’s several thousand people. Just look.
10:14 AM - Oct 21, 2018

The caravan is more than two miles long. People near the end are stumbling. It’s 23 miles to Tapachula and it’s so hot — 90 degrees — today.  2:11 PM - Oct 21, 2018

Ingrid Andino, her husband and their two children left their small town in Honduras about a month ago after a local gang started pressuring her 16-year-old son to sell drugs. “They were going to kill him or kill us,” she said.

Andino said her family stayed with relatives in another town for a time before seeing the caravan on the news and deciding to join.

On Sunday, she and her family walked north in a line, holding hands, while she carried a bag containing the family’s possessions balanced on her head.

Trump has made the caravan a campaign issue at rallies across the country ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, calling it a menace to national security. He has threatened Mexico and Central American countries with economic reprisal if they fail to stop the migrants and vowed to send the military to close the U.S. border should the group make it that far.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, under pressure from Trump, has said repeatedly that no migrants will be allowed to enter the country in an “irregular” manner. Mexico’s deterrence of those who tried to storm the official border crossing Friday drew praise from Trump.

But when droves of people began crossing the river, swimming or boarding rafts, Mexican police and immigration agents just watched.

Gerardo Hernandez, head of the civil protection agency in the municipality of Suchiate, Chiapas, said that as of Saturday night, 7,233 immigrants had been registered at a shelter in Ciudad Hidalgo.

The group formed an imposing bloc as it began to march Sunday. Many Mexicans who live in the area lined the highway, handing out free clothes, sandwiches and bottles of water while cheering the caravan on.

“May God bless you!” one woman shouted.
“Thank you, Mexico!” the migrants shouted back.

Several times, large groups of police officers clad in riot gear blocked the road but then retreated. At one point, a small group of police watched as members of the caravan passed, some of them skipping.

When a small group of immigration officials tried to stop the caravan to persuade its members to apply for political asylum, the caravan swept past them, too.

As the day wore on, the enthusiasm drained somewhat.

The strongest of the group, mostly young men, led while the weaker fell behind. One teenage girl stumbled into a car parked on the shoulder of the highway, then rested her head for a brief moment on the trunk. Others carried cases of water, stuffed animals or children.

Paola Oviedo, 21, walked while hugging her 18-month-old son to her chest. She was panting, and she and her baby were both sweating heavily.

Oviedo, who crossed the Suchiate River on a raft, said she decided to leave Honduras after facing death threats from her abusive ex-husband. The police did nothing to help her, she said.

She said she didn’t want her son to grow up without his mother.

“I have to do this for his future,” she said.

Each immigrant was driven by a different dream.

For Cesar Meijia, 23, it was the freedom to be himself.

When Meijia came out as gay several years ago, his family sent him to a psychologist and the local gang threatened to kill him, saying they did not want people like him in their neighborhood. “I want to go to a place where people respect me,” he said, marching with a rainbow flag tied across his broad shoulders.

For Ramon Izaguirre, 20, the dream was to return to the life he left behind.

Izaguirre was born in Honduras but later moved to Phoenix with his mother. She cleaned houses while Izaguirre worked construction. He earned enough to buy a small condominium and a silver Mazda Miata.

He said he was was deported about a month ago after a routine traffic stop revealed that a work permit he used to enter the country had expired.

Izaguirre had convinced several friends in Honduras to try to reach the United States with him again.

“All my life is there, waiting for me,” he said in English. “I miss my PlayStation. I miss Buffalo Wild Wings. I miss my car.”

The group walked together Sunday at a quick pace. Izaguirre, dressed in a camouflage shirt from his days in ROTC at a Phoenix high school, led the way. At one point, he started reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

When a pickup truck pulled up next to the caravan and offered them a ride, Izaguirre and his friends scrambled into the back.

“Let’s go,” he said, and the truck sped off.

Migrants arrived throughout the afternoon in Tapachula, finding their way to a plaza in the city’s colonial-era center.

Denis Omar Contera, an organizer with Pueblo Sin Fronteras, which is helping the group, said the caravan plans to rest Monday before setting out again.

He laughed off claims made by some Republicans that the caravan is being organized by Democrats or political opponents of the right-wing president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez.

“The only people who have helped us are the poor people of Guatemala and Mexico who have shared with us their beans and tortillas,” he said.

Times staff writer Patrick McDonnell in Mexico City contributed to this report.

6:20 p.m.: This article was updated to include the new number of caravan members who have applied for refugee status in Mexico.

5:10 p.m.: This article was updated with political analysis and scenes from the caravan.

9:30 a.m.: This article was updated with the caravan passing police en route to the U.S. and with additional background.

This article was originally published at 7:15 a.m.

Republican right wing myths - Ripley's Believe it or Not?

Even more worrisome than the rise of Donald Trump the Chump as a Republican Presidential candidate, are the myth makers who present lies as truth.  In fact, immigrant children are being victimized by FoxNews right wing lies.

Numbers of children who're illegally immigrating into the US are increasing, but let's get the data about their arrival correct. 

FoxNews is one perpetrator of political misinformation. This right wing cable news channel thrives on creating right wing truth, regardless of any evidence to back up the rhetoric.

Regarding US immigration from Central America and Mexico, FoxNews has created a dangerous cottage industry of lies.  

Indeed, Mr. Ripley would put  the FoxNews "matter of fact", statements, as being too incredulous to believe. 

Nevertheless, many gullible watchers of FoxNews are certainly falling for myths. For example, the purpose of the FoxNews immigration compulsion is just to create fear about immigrants. 

Moreover, Donald Trump has built his stand up soapbox stump speech on the fear these immigration myths generate.

Myth Number One:

35,000 illegal children immigrants cross into the US through Texas, every month! They enter by riding into the US on the roofs of trains.

Obviously, this myth is ridiculous. It seems to me, any reasonable person would see this myth for what it is - a right wing lie. Yes, the numbers of child immigrants are growing because nothing is being done to stop the violence these children are exposed to in their home countries.

Here's what I found out:

Pipeline of children: A border crisis

Gang Violence, Lack of Opportunity and Misinformation Lead to a Mass Exodus North to the United States. Thousands Travel Well Worn but Dangerous Path in Hopes of New Opportunity.

So, this report from AZCentral doesn't seem to report 35,000 children arriving every month, on the roofs of trains. Nevertheless, this misinformation is in the minds of right wing extremists.

As a matter of fact, a pipeline bringing a flood of Central American migrants to the United States, including thousands of unaccompanied children, begins in villages like Quebrada Maria, near the Caribbean coast of Honduras.  But the numbers are no where near 35,000, every month.  If this myth were fact, there would hardly be any children left in Central America.

Here's who are immigrating: Dimple-faced, 14-year-old Brayan Duban Soler Redondo lived in daily fear of being beaten up or killed by members of gangs like Mara Salvatrucha, also called MS-13, and Calle 18.

Gangs such as these terrorize neighborhoods throughout Central America. Over three days in May, gang members in a Honduran city, San Pedro Sula, murdered five children ages 5 to 13.  "They cut their bodies into quarters as a warning to others because the children didn't want to distribute drugs in their neighborhood," said Father German Calix, director of Caritas Honduras, a Catholic relief agency.

Slayings like these were why Brayan was desperate to leave. He imagines himself working in an office in the United States someday, "wearing fancy clothes" and sending money back to his family.

But his charming smile offered little protection in his village, where gangs kill over the smallest of things, he said, even for trying to go to school or wearing the wrong clothes.

He had no idea how he would escape that world until, the week before Easter, he heard news he thought could save his life.

Two brothers from the same village had set off a month earlier for the United States. Their mother had received a call. The boys, teenagers like Brayan, had made it. Word spread through the village fast. The boys told their mother that, after turning themselves in to "la migra," the Border Patrol, they had been detained briefly and then released to relatives in the United States.

Brayan saw a way out.

There was one big problem. Migrants often pay smugglers thousands of dollars to guide them to the United States. 

Brayan didn't have any money. He's the youngest of eight children. His parents are coffee pickers. And, unlike many migrants, he didn't know any relatives working in the U.S. to send him money for the trip.

But that didn't deter him. After hearing the story about the two boys, Brayan decided to leave his family behind and strike out the very next day on a 1,400-mile journey to the U.S. To earn money, he killed a rabbit and sold it for the equivalent of $9.50, which he carried in his pocket the day he left.

So in mid-April, Brayan entered the pipeline, which has grown increasingly crowded with children looking for an escape route out of their violent homelands. (But 35,000 a month? Impossible!)

Here's another right wing myth:  The reason so many thousands of illegal immigrants are crossing into the US is because they want to vote in American elections!

Well, this is truly ridiculous, because most who're fleeing their homes in Central America and in Mexico are unable to speak or read in English! Moreover, none are American citizens, a requirement before anyone can vote in any US election. 

Rather, these desperate immigrants are trying to earn money. The US dollar is so strong, it's like a magnet drawing them north. They have no interest in voting in American elections, at this time, because they aren't citizens. Nevertheless, in the event any of the immigrants, eventually, become American citizens, they'll certainly remember those who helped them along "a path to citizenship". Those who helped the immigrants, will undoubtedly be rewarded with their votes. Otherwise, this preposterous "voting" myth has no substance.

Certainly, as some wise pundit once said, a lie can travel around the world before the truth catches up. It seems to  me, the purpose of FoxNews is to create an extensive network of lies, too many for any truth teller to ever catch.

Meaning, FoxNews will continue to smother the truth about immigration from Central America and Mexico into the US. Indeed, it will likely take generations before Mr. Ripley will be able to publish the FoxNews myths in the "Believe it or Not" museum, because the facts about the young immigrants may never be entirely known.

Even with 24/7 real time news, it appears the right wing has escaped being "factified". 

Nevertheless, common sense should prevail in political myth busting. There's just no way 35,000 children are illegally immigrating into  the USA every month, arriving on the roofs of trains. Even more incredulous, those who manage to escape the tyranny of the situations the immigrants are fleeing from are certainly not taking this arduously dangerous journey so they can vote in American elections. Thoughtful Americans should never believe incredible lies about desperate immigrants. Yet, the barn door has opened and it will take generations before the news media will be able to "factify" these myths. 

Let's hope Democrats will win all the 2016 US elections. Americans need to follow credible news media, that will be forced to respond to those who believe in the desperation behind real immigration facts, rather than creating unbelievable myths about those desperately seeking a new way of life for themselves. (Whatever happened to investigative journalism, anyway?)

FoxNews shouldn't be a source for "Ripley's Believe it or Not" reporting. Instead, FoxNews should be the perpetrators of factual news

Pro Life Right Wing Christians are posting anti immigration rhetoric on social media but loss of life is ignored

It breaks my heart to see how many zealous people leap into posting anit immigration rhetorical messages on the social media pages, like facebook. They're even quoting the US Constitution to stand on self righteous, albeit wrong minded principles, about how important it is for America to protect our borders against illegal immigrants, even barring children from seeking asylum.

In fact, there are reports on Progressive news feeds about how these desperate children are being murdered soon after the US government deports them back to their home countries. They are deported because right wing anti immigration zealots want to show how influential they are - because, obviously, there's no other reason to send children back to places where they're at risk for execution, except to bully the innocents.  This deportation of children is anti-life.

Where are those loud pro life demonstrators who bar women from seeking health care at clinics, but won't stand up for the lives of children who are fleeing threats of assassination, in Central America?

Moreover, the American border between Mexico and Texas, where most of the refugee children are crossing by the hundreds every month, is their international territory, more than it is America's border. If ingenious people's rights have precedence in many land dispute cases, it's the refugees who have more of a right to cross the territories their ancestors once lived in, than we, the immigrant Americans, have to prevent them from doing so.

I honestly don't know how anti immigration Americans can look at themselves in the mirror and sincerely  believe they have any right to keep refugee children from seeking asylum in our nation.  

Five Children Murdered After They Were Deported Back To Honduras

BY ESTHER YU-HSI LEE POSTED ON AUGUST 19, 2014 AT 9:00 AM UPDATED: AUGUST 19, 2014 AT 10:36 AM

http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2014/08/19/3472301/five-children-killed-after-deportation-honduras/
Between five and ten migrant children have been killed since February after the United States deported them back to Honduras, a morgue director told the Los Angeles Times. Lawmakers have yet to come up with best practices to deal with the waves of unaccompanied children apprehended by Border Patrol agents, but some politicians refute claims that children are fleeing violence and are opting instead to fund legislation that would fast-track their deportations.

San Pedro Sula morgue director Hector Hernandez told the Los Angeles Timesthat his morgue has taken in 42 dead children since February. According to an interview with relatives by the LA Times, one teenager was shot dead hours after getting deported. Last year, San Pedro Sula saw 187 killings for every 100,000 residents, a statistic that has given the city the gruesome distinction as themurder capital of the world. That distinction has also been backed up by an U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency infographic, which found that many Honduran children are on the run from extremely violent regions “where they probably perceive the risk of traveling alone to the U.S. preferable to remaining at home.” Hugo Ramon Maldonado of the Committee for the Protection of Human Rights in Honduras believes that about 80 percent of Hondurans making the exodus are fleeing crime or violence.

Since October 2013, Border Patrol agents have apprehended about 63,000 unaccompanied children and another 63,000 “family units” (adults and children) at the southern U.S. border. While a steady stream of deported immigrants are flown back to Honduras about three times per week, the United States sent its first planeload of about 40 Honduran mothers and children from this particular wave in mid-July. Those individuals were dropped off in Honduras’ capital San Pedro Sula.

Politicians like Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) have been keen on expediting the legal process by demanding that immigration judges make a court decision within seven days. But that move could undermine children’s rights by denying due process to children who already don’t understand the courtroom procedures. As Vox found out, one teenage girl told a border agent that she was afraid of being forced into prostitution only after her paperwork had been filed.

According to a United Nations report, at least 58 percent of the children cited “international protection needs” as in they were seeking protection from the international community because their home governments could no longer protect them. And at least 40 percent of apprehended children are eligible for some form of legal relief from removal, a 2012 Vera Institute report found.

Both the U.S. and Honduras governments have allocated funds to help repatriated immigrants stay in Honduras. In June, the White House stated that it would devote $18.5 million to “support community policing and law enforcement efforts to confront gangs and other sources of crime.” And the Honduran First Lady Ana Garcia de Hernandez committed to new governmental programs that are “aimed at improving the lives of those who are sent back and giving others a reason to stay.” Some deportees are rightfully skeptical since the Honduran government hasn’t exactly funded programs meant for repatriated immigrants: Valdete Wileman who runs the Center for Returned Migrants in San Pedro Sula said that the government hardly helps maintain her center.

Still, deportations — and sometimes certain death — will likely not stop. Especially jarring comes recent news out of a New Mexico immigration detention center where multiple lawyers representing women claim that the Honduran consulate is advising immigrants “to forego legal counsel and consent to deportation,” according to a Santa Fe affiliated public radio station.

Humanitarian crises on America's southern border

Ever wonder why Americans threw so much money on Haiti post disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes? Money was used as a way to prevent waves of families from floating up on American shores to escape the havoc in Haiti. Unfortunately, the money showered on Haiti hasn't seemed to improve the human condition in the poor country, but funds probably prevented people from floating their way to the southern shores of the  U.S.  

Now, Americans are seeing another wave of refugees hiking over difficult terrain to escape Central America and crossing our southern border, on foot. They're crossing the southern border with Texas or wherever they can enter, to be deliberately picked up and taken to detention centers. Let's face it. There's virtually no way of preventing this wave of immigration except to fix the problems the refugees are escaping.  

Nevertheless, politically right wing anti-immigration zealots who are, themselves, descendants of immigrants, are creating havoc with innocent Hispanic refugee-immigrants. They're embarrassing all Americans by outrageously blocking desperate Central American women and children from entering immigration centers in San Diego. This is the wrong action to take to bring about immigration reform. These innocent people seeking freedom from tyranny are draining their own country of people who somehow have enough money to pay "coyote" leaders to take them to the American border. In other words, the money paid to the "coyote" is no longer in the Central American economy but, rather, in the "coyote's" pocket. Moreover, the young families fleeing to the U.S. must be a labor drain on the nation they've left behind. 

In America, these refugee immigrants can work, if Republicans would allow them to receive a permit to do so. They want to work and pay taxes. Nevertheless, most of the refugees will likely find jobs for cash, where they are paid under the table and, therefore, won't pay taxes on their incomes. Republicans are blocking immigration reforms, which would help refugees to qualify to work for wages where they'd pay taxes and social security, until they would achieve residency status.

Right wing anti-immigration zealots are making America look cruel to the world by blocking women and children from entering immigration stations. These right wing anti-immigration zealots are, themselves, descendants of immigrants. Rather than waste time blocking innocent women and children, they should advise our U.S. Congress to pass meaningful immigration reform.

Once these refugee immigrants are in the U.S., they are very difficult to deport because they have no way of returning to where they came from. How does the U.S. deport tens of thousands of women and children? We can't.

Unfortunately, there's no quick answer to the current immigration dilemma. Yet, it's blatantly wrong to be angry at the innocent women and children seeking asylum in the U.S., where they want to work and live with their children, in freedom.

In my opinion, one way Americans can mitigate the growing humanitarian crises with Central American and Hispanic refugees is to let them work for taxable wages. It's not the perfect solution but immigrant labor is needed to do the jobs Americans don't want to perform. To do otherwise, not allowing them to work, is inviting a larger humanitarian crises when these waves of immigrants become dependent on "under the table" wages and find they cannot qualify for Social Security later in life.  

Meanwhile, while they're working, their wages would contribute to the Social Security trust fund. In the event the refugees will return to their native countries, the money they'd have paid into Social Security will stay in the fund. If they remain in the U.S., they will have paid into the fund to qualify for benefits later in life and not have to be forced to live on welfare.

This current immigration crises is a humanitarian disaster. But, blaming the victims, ie, the innocent women and children who suffered to reach the U.S., is definitely the wrong way to respond to the sadness of this situation.

Twitter responses to #refugeeriders on NBC Today

Sometimes, the social micro-blogging site "twitter" is like draining a rancid skin lesion with hashtags rather than a poultice. #hashtags can serve as social media exfoliates, acting to bring venomous opinions to the service.

In other words, how can the descendants of American immigrants, who were raised in our nation's huge "melting pot", possibly object to others who want to achieve the same freedom as our immigrant ancestors?

This can be a tribute to "tweeters" like me, who howl at the vitriolic responses from irrational thinkers who create reactionary arguments to logical thinking. 

Okay, at least, it should be a tribute, if the responses weren't also outrageous.

Weird tweets to logical posts means the outrageous responses are real time replies to something the tweeters really read before answering. In itself, that's at least some progress. Most times, radical reactionaries concoct theories about intellectual concepts and just blubber zealous garbage. On twitter, however, one can assume the respondents read 140 characters and understand the meaning of the messages to which they're responding. 

On NBCToday on July 2nd, the "Orange Room" question asked tweeters to respond with the hashtag #refugeeriders, in response to our nation's growing wave of immigration from Central America.  

Carson Daly of Today asked for twitter opinions about the desperate immigrant children and their mothers who were filmed being turned away from immigration processing centers in San Diego by angry demonstrators. 

I can't understand how people who are descendants of immigrants, like the protesters, could cruelly prevent other people from entering the US. Central American refugees are like any of our own ancestor, who came to the US to find a better life and to seek freedom.  

Nevertheless, here are the irrational responses to my #refugeeriders tweet:

1.  Tony Venuti ‏@TonyVenutiShow 58m

@julianawriter @TODAYshow Picketing NBC-Tucson Picketing NBC http://comunistmanifesto101.blogspot.com/2014/07/refugee-terrorism-is-refugeeriders-by.html …

2.  Laura Winkler ‏@stjohnswoods 7h

That statement might be worth a pittance if borderfelons were held 2 the standards of, at very least, my ancestors @julianawriter @TODAYshow

3.  LoneStar Dad ‏@LoneStar_Dad 8h

@julianawriter @TODAYshow ...Legal immigration v "illegal" why is that so hard to understand? #RefugeeRiders #tcot

4.  GimmeGowdy ‏@PolitiKellyRite 9h

@julianawriter @TODAYshow ...My WHITE European family cannot get more than a 3 month visa. Why.

5.  GimmeGowdy ‏@PolitiKellyRite 9h

@julianawriter @TODAYshow because they didn't follow the LEGAL PATH to citizenship, right?

6.  Additionally, to the above response, 7 people gave a "favorite" to my tweet #refugeeriders

Consequently, simple math, those who supported my #refugeeriders tweet outnumbered those who provided the vitriolic responses.

Nevertheless, none addressed the premise of my tweet.  

My premise is this: how can people, like us, who are descended from immigrants, ethically object and block others who are striving to achieve the same freedoms sought by our ancestors?

GimmyGowdy and her "white" family are the worst response because skin color has virtually nothing to do with immigration status. This racist response, more or less, supports the presumption that the #refugeeriders negative responses are more anti-Hispanics (who are Caucasians, by the way) than they are opposed to immigration.

When my grandparents immigrated, the US was decidedly anti-Catholic. My grandparents might as well have been people of color as Catholic. Today, religious prejudice against Christian faiths has largely subsided but, a century ago, it was as real as racism is today.

Immigration status should be awarded to those who enter the US with the intention of finding legitimate refuge from oppression, tyranny, and political executions and willing to work for a better way of life. These people want to work! They didn't travel dangerous terrain to seek asylum in the US because they're lazy!

Those of us who are descendants of immigrants must meditate about the intentions of our own ancestors. We are ethically called to prevent blocking the desperate refugees, mothers and children, who came from Central America and other Hispanic nations, from seeking a better life in the USA.

#refugeeriders - Please answer my tweet rather than waste social networking time creating vitriolic and illogical responses.