Central American chaos 101: refugees are our responsibility

Unfortunately, American have not asked enough questions about Central America, as though the cluster of countries somehow don't matter or they hardly exist.  But now, with thousands of migrant refugees fleeing, we are forced to understand the enormity of their social and economic hardships.  Yes, America is to blame for a lot of the instability.  Here is one echo opinion to help describe the situation.  Perhaps, it is Americans who have been the enemy. If so, then there is a moral responsibility to help those desperate people who are suffering as a consequence of American imperialism.

An echo opinion editorial published in the Massachusetts Greenfield Recorder by Preston Browning Jr.*

Thousands of immigrants flee violence and terror in Central
America

There is an expression from the African-America community of the 50s and 60s, that I cannot get out of my head: “What goes around comes around.” 

As thousands of immigrants flee violence and terror in Central America, that expression takes on profound contemporary meaning.

Most of my readers may ask ‘Why?’ 

And the answer is quite simple: because our country, the United States, has contributed mightily to creating the conditions that make countries like Honduras and El Salvador virtually unlivable. 

Smedley Butler, described by General Douglas MacArthur as one of the truly great generals in American history, would have understood exactly what that expression meant.

When he retired as commandant of the Marine Corps, he wrote about how he had spent most of his 33 years in the Corps: he had been, he wrote, “a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers,” serving, as “a racketeer for capitalism.” And now the searing confession of an honest man: along with hundreds of other Marines, he had taken part in “the rape of five Central American republics.”

So there could be no mistaking his intent, Butler grounded his claims in precise commercial details: “I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1919. I helped make Honduras ‘right’ for American fruit companies in 1903.” Al Capone, Butler wrote, thought he was hot stuff because he had three U.S. counties where he and his gang of thugs held sway, whereas this U.S. Marine Corps general and his men were free to prepare the way for the ravishing of whole countries.

The American public has almost no knowledge of our country’s role in turning the countries of Central America into what might be called “plantation dependencies,” states theoretically independent but actually little more than colonies. And whenever one of them has achieved real independence, it is only a matter of time before Washington turns loose the C.I.A., with the result that, in the case of Guatemala, for example, a civil war follows and a ruthless military government proceeds to undertake wholesale slaughter of its citizens.

This picture is not a pretty one. According to Stephen Shalom, author of “Imperial Alibis”: “In 1954, the United States overthrew the elected government of Guatemala and organized a brutal security apparatus to maintain the status quo. Over the next three and a half decades, the U.S.-backed security force was responsible for as many as 200,000 killings, with the help of intelligence files set up by the C.I.A.”

Today, such countries as Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala still suffer from this history of oppression and violence. 

Several years ago in Honduras a group of right wing crooks overthrew a democratically elected government; President Obama allowed his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, to recognize the new government as legitimate. Throughout Central America, jobs are scarce and educational opportunities often lacking. It is small wonder that thousands of men and women, even children, head north in search of a new home relatively free of grinding poverty, oppression and violence.

Donald Trump claims that a wall is required on our southern border to prevent rapists and drug dealers from entering the U.S. illegally. But he ignores the facts: most of the cocaine and other drugs are smuggled in through authorized entry facilities, and there is no statistical evidence that emigrants from south of the border are more given to sex crimes than are U.S. citizens. The vast majority of those attempting to cross over from Mexico are our brothers and sisters, far more products of our history than most of us can possibly imagine.

(MaineWriter- Americans owe a humanitarian response to the desperate Central American migrant refugees.)

*Preston Browning Jr. is director
of Wellspring House Retreat in Ashfield and Associate Professor Emeritus of English at the
University of Illinois at Chicago.

Immigrant children rescued by Nora Sandigo Children Foundation

Nora Sandigo Children Foundation

Angels among us ~ Florida humanitarian helps immigrant children

A mom in Florida is caring for 1,250 children of illegal immigrants in case their parents are deported ~ God Bless Her!

Gisela Salomon, Associated Press pubished in Business Insider

• Nora Sandigo cares for 1,250 children of undocumented immigrants who are at risk of being detained or deported.
• Parents who are worried about what may happen to their children if they are detained sign a document known as a power of attorney that allows Sandigo to become the children's caretaker.
• Sandigo is an immigrant herself. As a teen, she fled the socialist Sandinista government in Nicaragua and came to the US.

MIAMI (AP) — The 29-year-old Mexican farm worker was stressed and afraid. Her husband had just been detained by immigration authorities as he left a South Florida construction site and was about to be deported. She feared the same would soon happen to her. What would become of her two kids?

So she called Nora Sandigo, an immigration activist who has accepted responsibility for 1,250 children, becoming an essential part of emergency planning for people who are in the U.S. illegally and now face an increasing prospect of being caught amid a crackdown under President Donald Trump.

"Don't worry," Sandigo told her on a recent morning. "Come see me tomorrow."

Nora Sandigo Children Foundation

Hundreds of immigrant parents have signed a document known as a power of attorney that enables Sandigo to care for their children if they are detained, at which point it might be too late to make such an arrangement.

"People are desperate to do this to protect their kids," she said after hanging up with the woman from Mexico. "Once they are detained there's very little that can be done for them."

The power of attorney allows Sandigo to sign documents on behalf of children at schools, hospitals and court. She can help the minors pursue legal residency if they are not citizens or travel abroad to be reunited with their families.

At least once a week, Sandigo, a 52-year-old mother of two daughters, drives south to the city of Homestead and drops off donated clothing and food for some of them, mostly people from Mexico and Central America who work on nearby farms.

Every two weeks, many of the families gather at her home on the rural southern fringe of Miami. Sometimes several hundred show up.

She hands out donated supplies to the adults while the kids play with a menagerie of animals on the five-acre property, including ponies, a goat, pigs and a peacock.

Most of the kids still live with at least one parent, and in the end she may never have to take care of most of them.

Sandigo, a deeply religious woman who makes frequent references to God and Jesus, gets more involved if the parents are detained or deported. In December, she accompanied an 8-year-old Mexican girl to the hospital because the child couldn't sleep, eat or stop crying after her father was detained and went with another child to an asylum hearing in downtown Miami.

Two kids from Nicaragua whose parents were forced to leave the U.S. lived with her for two years. One now attends Georgetown University and the other lives with an uncle and plans to join the Army.

A 16-year-old who was born in the U.S. to parents from India has been living with her since September 2016, getting an education at a local public school that his parents felt he couldn't get after they were deported to their homeland. Sandigo refers to the boy, Ritibh Kumar, as "my lovely son."

Kumar, who is tall and athletic and has lived in the U.S. most of his life, said Sandigo checks his homework and watches him play tight end on his school's football team. "She is my No. 1 fan," he said. "This is my second home, my second mother."
When Lucia Ambruno was forced to return to Colombia, she placed her two children in Sandigo's care after hearing media reports about the foundation. The two teens lived with her in Kendall for several months until they were able to move in with family friends in another part of the U.S.

"She inspires a lot confidence, a lot of love," the 42-year-old Ambruno said of Sandigo. "I trusted her with my little ones and she didn't let me down."

Sandigo can relate to the immigrants she helps. She fled Nicaragua as a teen, leaving her own parents behind, after the socialist Sandinista government confiscated her family's farm. 

During the 1980s, Sandigo provided the U.S.-backed Contra insurgents with clothes and other supplies and later spirited her brother out of the country at age 16, before he could be drafted into the military.

She became a U.S. citizen in 1996 and became active in immigration issues, helping fellow refugees from Nicaragua. Sandigo has since become well known for broader efforts, which include filing a lawsuit last week against the Trump administration on behalf of children with citizenship whose parents have been deported.

"Nora has proven that she has a deep, caring heart and is committed to giving many immigrant kids a good start in life," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a South Florida Republican.

The first time Sandigo signed a power of attorney to help someone being deported was in 2006, when a woman from Peru needed help getting a young child back to the South American country.

"I'm a mama warrior, ready to protect children and their parents," she said.

Money for the effort comes from donations to the Nora Sandigo Children Foundation or from the businesses she runs with her husband, which include a plant nursery and an elderly care home. Some lawyers also offer voluntary help.

Sandigo has been setting up agreements with migrant parents for nearly a decade, but over the past 12 months the number of new ones has grown nearly 40 percent. She gets barraged with email, Facebook messages and phone calls from interested parents.

More than 110,500 immigrants were detained on suspicion of being in U.S. illegally in the first nine months under Trump, a 42 percent increase over a year earlier, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The administration has also ended programs that spared some categories of immigrants from deportation, including people from countries devastated by natural disaster such as Haiti and El Salvador.

The power of attorney forms don't confer full legal guardianship or transfer parental rights. No court order is required. State and local officials don't get involved unless there are allegations of fraud or abuse, in which case a judge can be asked to void the agreement. Similar arrangements are often used by elderly people who want someone to look out for their interests.

Others provide this service for immigrants around the U.S., though immigration experts say they know of no one who has done it to the extent of Sandigo.

For the Mexican woman who called Sandigo on a recent morning, it's a way to make sure her kids have someone to call and take care of them if she is suddenly arrested, someone who could send them to her in San Luis Potosi.

The woman showed up at Sandigo's house the following evening with her 2-year-old son after her eight-hour shift picking squash near Homestead, leaving her 11-year-old daughter with a neighbor. The woman, who asked that she be identified only by her first name, Lucia, said the drive was tense because she was afraid she would be pulled over and turned over to immigration.

Sandigo, who seems to always have a cup of coffee in her hand, embraced Lucia as if they had known each other for years. The boy headed off to play with a ball while they sat down to talk in the living room. Lucia said her husband crossed the border in 2006 and she followed the next year. Now, they fear their time in the U.S. is coming to an end. The husband was detained as he came back from a construction job near Miami.

She had heard of Sandigo through the immigrant grapevine. "She's a good person and that's why I'm going to her for help," Lucia said, still in tears after talking about what happened to her husband.

Sandigo tries to offer comfort, but as the woman drives away into the night, Sandigo says there is only so much reassurance she can give. "People are afraid, knowing that at any moment there's a possibility that their family can be destroyed," she said.

Care for the elderly and immigrant care givers

Published in The San Juan Daily Star, Puerto Rico newspaper:

If Immigrants Are Pushed Out, Who Will Care for the Elderly?

(MaineWriter - fear is the overriding concept in this article by Paula Span. Fear expressed by clients who are worried about losing their care givers when they need them most and likewise the fear felt by undocumented immigrants who face deportation.)

In Dallas, a 93-year-old is worried about the woman who, for years, has come to her house four days a week to help with shopping, laundry, housecleaning and driving. 

Metropolitan Jewish Health System

“She’s just a wonderful person, someone I feel I can trust completely,” said the older woman. But, because her helper is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, both women increasingly fear that she’ll be detained and deported. (I’m withholding their names for that reason.) 

“If this woman gets pulled over today, who will help my mother tomorrow?” said her daughter, an attorney in Oakland, Calif. In Brooklyn, Mary DiGangi, the human resources director at the Menorah Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing Care, recently asked local employment agencies to find 20 to 25 new nursing assistants and practical nurses. 

It’s a typical request, and usually, she said, “I’m flooded with applications the next day.” This time, she saw only five applications over a month. She thinks the Trump administration’s immigration policies and rhetoric have discouraged potential workers. 

Menorah, part of MJHS Health System  (Metropolitan Jewish Health System), draws heavily on immigrants for its 3,500 employees. Among them are 25 Haitian-American nursing assistants and practical nurses whose temporary protected status was terminated in November. They will have to leave by July 2019, unless the Secretary of Homeland Security changes her mind. Other Menorah staffers brought to this country as children, now DACA recipients, also remain in limbo. 

“Employees have told me they know it’s going to be OK,” Ms. DiGangi said. “I’m not sure if they’re convincing me or themselves.” One in four of the direct-care workers in the nation’s nursing homes, assisted living facilities and home care agencies are foreign-born, according to an analysis of census data by P.H.I., the New York research organization. In the so-called gray market, where consumers hire home care workers directly and often pay them under the table, the proportion is likely far higher. “We’re seeing a growing work force shortage in direct care,” said Robert Espinoza, vice president of policy for P.H.I. “It’s affecting the entire industry, and it’s affecting older and disabled people and their families.” The shortage stems partly from a growing economy, said Robyn Stone, a veteran researcher at Leading Age, whose nonprofi t members include long-term care providers. 

When employers are hiring, she explained, “these folks are likely to look down the street at a hospital that pays more, or another industry like fast food, and leave.” Mostly, however, what drives the labor shortage is long-term demographic change. Older people are living longer, most developing chronic diseases and disabilities; the sheer numbers of baby boomers further increases the demand for assistance. But the population of working-age women, who typically provide care both paid and unpaid, has shrunk — and they have more career options than they once did. So providing care for older people, in their homes or in facilities, has become the classic example of a job native-born Americans would rather not take. It’s physically demanding work that pays poorly — the median wage for home care workers was $10.49 an hour in 2016, P.H.I. reports — and usually doesn’t include benefi ts. The aides, mostly women, who serve in this crucial but low-income role frequently qualify for federal programs like food stamps or Medicaid. Their advocates have long argued for ways to improve these jobs, with more training and higher pay. 

For now, though, what P.H.I. calls the “care-giving gap” has been filled by immigrants. The number of immigrants in direct care ballooned from 520,000 in 2005 to approximately one million in 2015, including those who work independently through state home care programs, P.H.I. estimates. In New York, California, New Jersey and Florida, more than 40 percent of direct-care workers are immigrants. If large numbers of immigrants become unable to work or fearful of attracting unwanted attention, “this is going to create tremendous strain,” Dr. Stone said. Already, “we’ve heard of nursing homes that have shut down, or stopped admissions, because they could not hire enough people.” 

Excluding the gray market, the majority of aides and nursing assistants are American citizens. But P.H.I. has calculated that nearly 35,000 come from Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras, whose immigrants have had temporary protected status in the United States. The administration has so far terminated T.P.S. status for Haitians, Salvadorans and Nicaraguans; other nationalities may follow. Immigrants from Sudan, whose T.P.S. status was also terminated, will have to leave the United States as early as this fall. Another nearly 11,000 direct care workers come from largely Muslim countries aff ected by the Trump travel ban and might leave if family members can never join them. An unknown number of workers are DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipients who might eventually be forced to leave. Even when workers are legal residents, though, they may consider moving when relatives are deported. Whole neighborhoods and communities feel targeted. “Just the scrutiny is casting a pall,” Dr. Stone said. “If they’re afraid, if they won’t apply for jobs, we could see more shortages.” As that happens, the eff ects ripple through nursing facilities and home care agencies. “When we struggle to fi ll positions, the people already working here are working harder,” Ms. DiGangi pointed out. They may take more shifts, or become responsible for more patients. Eventually, especially in rural areas where home care workers have to travel long distances to clients, older adults (and younger ones with disabilities) may not be able to hire people who can help them remain in their homes. In cities and suburbs, older immigrants who want assistance from those who speak their native language could be similarly at a loss. In the San Fernando Valley in Southern California, a home care worker named Norma, who fled El Salvador with her family almost 20 years ago, assists her 91-year-old disabled neighbor under a state program. She works every day from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., helping her client bathe, dress, eat, and circle the block in a wheelchair. Both Spanish speakers, the women have drawn close. “In the morning, when I arrive at the house, she brightens and says, ‘Norma, you’re here!’” Norma told me through an interpreter. 

But the Donald Trump administration has terminated Salvadorans’ temporary protected status as of September 2019. “I feel scared,” Norma said. “There’s so much unknown.” While she worries for herself and her husband — and her two daughters, who are DACA recipients — she also fears for her client. 

“If one day I don’t show up to work, nobody will be there to get her out of bed and change her,” she said. “This could be my own mom, who would be alone one day if nobody came to help.”