I grew up in anti-immigration, small-town Arizona, and I believed the rhetoric. Then I moved to Minnesota and heard Carmen’s* story.
Now I believe immigration to the U.S. is a humanitarian crisis rather than a national security emergency. How we treat people who are trying to enter our country and whether we let those who are here stay, whatever their legal status, are issues of compassion.
The numbers are staggering. One in every 115 people is a refugee or displaced person. More than half are children. Immigrants are 13.5% of the U.S. population, and they come from nearly every country in the world. In 2018, U.S. custom agents predominately apprehended children and families at the border. Why do these families undertake the hazardous journey to the U.S.?
I didn’t understand why until I met Carmen and many others.
Carmen and her brother lived on the streets in Mexico because their parents couldn’t feed them. They snuck across the border to the U.S. hoping to find work and food.
In Honduras, Isabela was sent to prison after seeking justice for her father’s mafia-orchestrated murder. She sold her cow to pay lawyer fees, but it was years before she returned to her children, and even longer before she escaped her town’s social stigma by coming to the U.S.
The mother of a young, crippled and scarred girl from somewhere in Africa conveyed through a translator that her daughter had been raped, attacked with acid, and then left to die.
Once here, Carmen found a low-paying job. But she was still vulnerable. Desperate for stability, she moved in with a handsome, blue-eyed American. He took her money, brought home drunken fights and drugs, beat her in front of their children and destroyed her confidence. When she protested, he reminded her that she was an “illegal” and smiled as he threatened to report her.
Like Carmen, many immigrants come to the United States seeking to escape poverty or violence or to give their children a chance to survive. Unfortunately, as a nation and as individuals we sometimes respond with hate instead of compassion. We forget that deportation has rippling consequences. If immigrants, as I once would have said, went “back where they belong,” what would happen to them?
Last year, Angelina showed an asylum officer her left hand, missing four fingers. Reminders of a savage gang attack. Her request for asylum was denied and she was ordered to be deported. She fears the gang will kill her.
After Ana, from El Salvador, was denied asylum and deported to her native country, she was savagely beaten. She died from those injuries.
I wonder what would happen to Carmen if she were deported. But I also wonder what would happen to Carmen’s young children who are United States citizens. Would they stay with their father who abuses both substances and his children? Would they go with Carmen to Mexico, although they don’t speak much Spanish and were born here? Would she be able to provide for them there?
National security is important. And some immigrants are criminal, depraved human beings. But not all are, and the rest, the majority of the group, do not deserve harsh treatment for the bad choices of the few.
Our nation’s first European settlers were fleeing hate and persecution. We were founded by immigrants. We celebrate Independence Day. We sing songs from Lin Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton.” Why, then, do we reject modern immigrants and attack refugees with hateful rhetoric instead of offering compassion?
* All names have been changed.
Charlotte Scholl Shurtz
Charlotte Scholl Shurtz, Provo, is a recent graduate of Brigham Young University. While living in Minnesota, she met immigrants and refugees from more than 50 countries.
