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Monday, February 22, 2016

"Refugees, the Difference a Word Makes" by Rita Lucey, ARCWP

Violence, corruption, decade old brutal criminal and narco warfare, egregious human rights abuses, trafficking, war, disunity, murder are only some of the adjectives used  in the article on the Pope's trip to Mexico.  And yet we refer to the people escaping these criminal forces as immigrants, aliens, illegals.

It seems to me that these are as much refugees as those escaping countries in the Middle East! The same conditions apply for they too are fleeing bloodshed.    They too are refugees from such terrible violence.

Once these  refugees arrive they are labeled 'undocumented' and when the bed quota falls below the mandated Congressional level of 34,000 in our mostly private prisons, then ICE ( Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids the major cities to find enough human beings - illegals, aliens, and immigrants to jail. So much for refugees.

 Yes, we have a law, passed by our elected representatives in Congress in 2009,  that mandates that we keep 34,000 undocumented immigrants in prisons every day! Follow the money on this one as Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO,  for profit private prison corporations, legally profit from  these 'bed quota' laws that cost taxpayers like you and me at least  $2billion a year

If we were to recognize these human beings fleeing  from Central and South America as refugees, which they truly are then. perhaps, once again the words of Emma Lazarus's  on the Statue of Liberty would ring true " give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

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