I am so disappointed. The President plans to “catch and
release” asylum seekers and place them only into “Democratic strongholds” to
punish his political enemies. Why not send them to Republican strongholds to
reward his supporters?
Wyoming’s Trump backers deserve to know the facts about the
families their President vilifies. All they know of those seeking refuge from
violence and oppression in their homelands is what they hear from Trump and
Trump-TV, i.e. Fox News. Trump voters say that’s the truth. Trump opponents say
it isn’t.
Let’s settle that argument? Invite the President to send some
of those families to Wyoming for resettlement. It would help if Wyoming joined
the other 49 states and entered into a refugee resettlement agreement with the
feds to make some funding available to help these families get started in their
new homes.
But, right wingers who think it’s cute to send these
families to San Francisco will nix that idea. No problema. My church will step
up. I’ll bet the conservative churches will join us. We’re all looking for ways
to live our faith. This is the opportunity to welcome the stranger as Jesus
asked us to do. After all, we’re all Bible-believing Christians. Deuteronomy
10:18 and similar scripture tells us what we must do.
The Bible uses the Hebrew “ger” to identify vulnerable human
beings from outside our family and community as deserving of our help. Scripture
calls them “strangers.” U.S. and international law call them asylum seekers.
The Bible says, “God executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and the
stranger, giving them food and clothing.”
By fulfilling God’s wishes, Wyoming churches can combine
their resources to feed, clothe, and house the “ger” among the asylum seekers
the President sends to our door.
First, you need to know who these people are. By definition,
they are here legally, fleeing their homeland because of war, violence, and
persecution. Some are our fellow Christians, being persecuted for their faith. We
could expressly ask the President to send them.
I know you have heard it said these countries are not
sending us their best. You have heard it said that “they’re bringing drugs,
they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume are good people.”
But,
I say unto you, these are mostly good people, less likely to commit crimes than
fellow citizens. The Cato Institute found undocumented persons 44 percent less
likely to be incarcerated than our native-born neighbors. Legal immigrants, like
those the President should send here, are 69 percent less likely to be
incarcerated.
Certainly
your President won’t send un-vetted people into even the Blue states, much less
the deeply Red states like Wyoming. Right? The Cato Institute’s numbers are
quite conservative for the asylum-seeking families we’ll be welcoming to live
among us.
I know you have been told these folks take jobs from Americans,
but I say unto you, that is not the case. Ask the employers in your community who
have illegally hired undocumented workers. They probably sit next to you at
those Republican Party meetings you all attend. They know these people very
well. They’ve been paying them under the table and exploiting them for decades.
They will attest to the facts. The “ger” are among the hardest working
employees and are willing to do the jobs your non-ger neighbors won’t.
They’ll need time off to attend immigration-status hearings. While
you’ve been told they do not follow through with their legal commitments,
studies show the vast majority do appear as ordered. The backlog on these cases
is about three years, so this could be a burden.
Hey Wyoming, your President needs you. He is searching frantically
for ways to take care of the asylum seekers. How often I have heard about the state’s
open spaces and the exceptional hospitality of Wyoming people. Now is the time
for all good Wyomingites to come to the aid of our country. Mr. Trump, “Give us your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to be breathe free.”
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