Is there really a border crisis?

Dear Editor,

We hear there is a border crisis — immigrants are overwhelming our ability to find space for them until their hearings are held. And why hearings? Because these immigrants are not just coming to our country to change location, they are coming for fear of their lives being lost to bullets, machetes, or starvation by leaders and gangs in their homeland. So, they seek refugee status — a determination of whether the threat for their life is real. And if it is, since the majority of our nation believes in the right to life, they would be allowed to stay.

Finding a place to stay during this wait seems to be the problem. But didn't we, the United States of America, find "places" (internment camps) for more than 110,000 Japanese and German American citizens we perceived (wrongly, for the majority) as a threat in World War II?

So is there a crisis? Or is it a matter of adjusting our system to allow the time for the refugee determination to be made by our judges? The immediate adjustment is finding "places" for those involved until their case is heard and legal determination made. As history mentioned above shows, we have found "places" for holding people before, and this time it is for humane reasons.

I would hope, that in some future column, the Honorable Mr. Redwine could discuss the status and meaning of a "refugee" and its legal basis — as both a national and international situation governments deal with — and that we, as citizens, need to know more about. I'm sure his comments would be educational and based on knowledge of the law.

Sincerely,

Michael L. Jordan

Pawhuska