The Mexican-American Migrant Crisis | #DontLookAway
An intimate reflection of how the Mexican-American Migrant Crisis could turn out to be the next Holocaust.
REPEATING HISTORY |
At just 13 years old, Anne Frank and her family moved to Amsterdam where they went into hiding for 2 years from German Nazis during World War II. She and her sister, Margot, were sent to the Bergen-Belson camp, torn from the rest of their family, who they would never see again. Their parents were chosen for labor in another camp, where eventually their mother, Edith, would pass. Just weeks before Bergen-Belson was liberated, both girls also met an unfortunate fate.
Typhus is the culprit of Frank girls’ deaths, a truth obscured by myth and mystery. Many believe she was gassed, like countless others when the actual truth is that the poor living conditions in the camp gave way to sinister diseases that were just as dangerous, just as bloodthirsty as the uniformed Nazis.
In modern-day North America, along the Mexican-American border, a very similar exercise is being performed with asylum-seekers evading gang wars and rampant murder after a 2009 coup. President of the United States, Donald Trump, believes these migrants are illegally attempting to gain citizenship while accusing these fleeing victims of being criminals out for blood and money, their intent is said to be focused on staging violent acts across the country. However, as previously stated, these people are seeking asylum, a perfectly legal action acknowledged around the globe.
“An asylum-seeker is a person who has left their country and is seeking protection from persecution and serious human rights violations in another country, but who hasn’t yet been legally recognized as a refugee and is waiting to receive a decision on their asylum claim. Seeking asylum is a human right. This means everyone should be allowed to enter another country to seek asylum,” (Amnesty International).
The chaos erupting at the Mexican-American border is creating divides across the country, even across the world. Several people interviewed for this article living in and around Europe cited sentiments that the 45th president of the United States is constantly spoken of in both social and entertainment circles, often being mocked and drawing attention to the rapidly crumbling infrastructure of the USA.
GROUND ZERO |
The Land of the Free can no longer refer to itself as such.
Donald Trump is keeping asylum-seeking children detained in concentration camps ( #TrumpCamps ) along the southern American border without toothpaste and toothbrushes, towels, showers, or soap while also being forced to find comfort on concrete floors under aluminum blankets under constant fluorescent lighting and without any privacy to use the toilet, (Texas Tribune). They’re being moved into World War II-era Japanese-American internment camps, (Time); they’re being stripped away from their guardians and families, (Time); subject to sexual abuse on behalf of the guards, where thousands of cases have reported since 2015, (National Public Radio, Inc). Migrant minors are being forcibly separated from their families, placing them in uncertain danger. The Trump Administration has cited that over three-thousand children have been separated from their guardians.
“It’s ugly in there,” — Migrant girl, 12, speaking of the camp’s conditions where she and her younger sister were detained before being rescued by an anonymous host.
The parents are often sent back to their countries of origin if they’re not shot (it is legal for border patrol to fatally wound a migrant under Trump law), or left in a foreign country along the route, where they are faced with the dangers that drove them away before — chiefly, gang violence.
The severe gang activity plaguing South and Central America originated from a coup that occurred in 2009. The opposing groups seized such power when the United States’ attempted to bring in a new type of government to the region. They’ve unleashed this war on the most powerless communities, families, and then deny them the asylum they need to escape this fighting. Gangs like MS-13 feed on the same fear that Trump does.
HOW TO HELP |
Please don’t stop talking about this, don’t look away.
Dehumanizing a group is the first step toward an event that will be on scale with the Holocaust. These are concentration camps.
We cannot let this happen. Contact your local legislation offices, your candidates for the upcoming election. Share this sentiment with your friends and family. If we keep talking, the victims won’t be silenced, the lost will not have died in vain.
Below some articles are listed, including one with sites that can be used to donate to the migrants on the border.
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Tagging can help us spread the word on sites like Twitter and Instagram.
#TrumpCamps
#DontLookAway
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RELATED ARTICLES|
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WORKS CITED|
(2019). Refugees, Asylum-seekers, and Migrants. What We Do, Amnesty International. Retrieved from https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/refugees-asylum-seekers-and-migrants/
Flynn, M. (2019.) Detained migrant children got no toothbrush, no soap, no sleep. It’s no problem, government argues. Texas Tribune. Retrieved from https://www.texastribune.org/2019/06/21/detained-migrant-children-no-toothbrush-no-soap/
Hennigan, W.J..(2019). Trump Administration to Hold Migrant Children at Base That Served as WWII Japanese Internment Camp. Time Magazine. Retrieved from https://time.com/5605120/trump-migrant-children-fort-sill/
Gonzales, R. (2019). Sexual Assault Of Detained Migrant Children Reported In The Thousands Since 2015. National Public Radio. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2019/02/26/698397631/sexual-assault-of-detained-migrant-children-reported-in-the-thousands-since-2015
(2019). Anne Frank: Biography. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved from https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/anne-frank-biography
