The family clutched sacks holding the few precious things they could carry. Surrounded by hostile eyes, they crossed the first border (mostly an imaginary line on the road), trudging on, trying not to attract attention. Then they nervously crossed the second border, amid a concrete funnel, unchallenged. After more walking under the summer sun they saw the flag poles before the grand government building.
A bit afraid, they entered.
“We seek asylum,” they told the perplexed uniformed gentleman.
He picked-up his phone, punched some numbers, then asked the answering voice “Does the City Of Ladue have an asylum policy?”
The eleven northern most wards of the City of St. Louis probably have an effective murder rate greater than one death per 1,000 residents per year, meaning that over a decade better than 1% of all citizens get killed. Add-in the merely physically injured and robbed and staying in the north St. Louis gets extremely dicey.
Wouldn’t the sane response be to go some where safer?
Yet, the families struggling to survive north of Delmar and east of Skinker probably can’t afford to leave. And, many near-by municipalities – Jennings, Wellston, Pine Lawn, Riverview to name a few – have poverty and crime issues too.
So, grabbing the essentials and moving through University City west on Delmar, then south behind the Schnucks into Ladue becomes a logical choice.
Unfortunately, bet lunch money that the most gracious response by Ladue would be a free cab ride back to north city.
Now go south by west…way, way south and really far west:
To obtain asylum through the affirmative asylum process you must be physically present in the United States. You may apply for asylum status regardless of how you arrived in the United States or your current immigration status.
https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum/asylum/obtaining-asylum-united-states
That’s official government website-stated policy, that’s why families escaping gang violence in El Salvador or political upheaval in Nicaragua come up through Mexico and present themselves at the U.S. border. They do it because that’s what they have been told to do, what they must do to gain a better life for themselves and their children.
Now, let’s talk family values.
Amid the calls for must work programs comes the predictable refrain “that applying work requirements to existing welfare programs can increase employment and reduce dependency, and may improve child wellbeing” [CEA – Expanding Work Requirements in Non-Cash Welfare Programs, p. 6]. Yes, we’re making you work in dead-end, low-wage jobs without benefits because it’s good for your kids.
Remember, families showing-up at the border have chosen to do what they logically think is best. They want to work and pay taxes, they want a chance for the American dream. Most would jump through hoops for one of those dead-end, low-wage jobs. (Note how many Mexicans found their way to Iowa half a generation ago to work in pork processing.)
Our government’s response: cage the kids and send the parents back to the violence and upheaval.
See problems with this?
Obviously, the right thing to do is – as has been the case since the Pilgrims fled religious persecution to create their own theocracy in Massachusetts – to help families do what’s best for their children and join America. We need workers, we praise families. Let these folks join us.
Meanwhile, back on Clayton Road, maybe Ladue does need an asylum policy. Why should a family from El Salvador get a better chance at safety and happiness than a family from Fairgrounds Park?
Submitted by Glenn Koenen, WCD Member