Source: harpersbazaar.com
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A migrant girl from Honduras cries after running away from tear gas released by U.S. border patrol.
Reuters / Kim Kyung Hoon
There are barefoot refugee children, in diapers, choking on tear gas that America has unleashed on them at the San Ysidro border crossing.
President Trump at first denied the use of tear gas, and then, in a reversal we’ve come to expect, claimed, “[Border agents] were being rushed by some very tough people and they used tear gas.” Very tough people. Like women in Frozen T-shirts and children in diapers, who are seeking asylum—as is their legal right.
As for Trump’s assertion that the tear gas used was the “very safe” kind—tear gas is a chemical weapon. It was initially used in WWII and now international treaties forbid its use in war. The gas, which is actually suspended particles of nerve agent, causes the civilians it is used upon to choke, experience burning sensations, and, in some cases, causes (hopefully temporary) blindness. It can also kill. Thirty-seven people, for instance, died in Egypt of asphyxiation after being tear gassed. Because of its effects, doctors agree that tear gas is especially not “very safe” to use on children.
It is not Trump that concerns me. Trump’s legacy is already written in pure, steaming shit. What shocks me the most, is the number of people who hear that we are using chemical weapons on toddlers and attempt to defend that practice.
There are those who wonder along with Trump, “Why is a parent running up into an area where they know the tear gas is forming and it’s going to be formed and they were running up with a child?"
Do you think the Irish wanted to take their children on unsanitary, typhus-ridden “coffin ships” so they could come to America? No, they boarded those ships because they were dying by the million back in Ireland in the 1840s due to famine.
When people in California flee their burning houses, we do not tell them to go back into the flames instead of running outside, where there is dangerous smoke, which will save their lives. We accept that people leave places where it is unsafe, and try to go places where it is safer for them and their children. Or, as Warsan Shire writes:
“no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark”
The fact that a caravan largely comprised of people from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are here facing tear gas and turmoil speaks to the state of their countries. Doctors without Borders reports that these countries are experiencing “unprecedented levels of violence outside a war zone” and that “citizens are murdered with impunity, kidnappings and extortion are daily occurrences.”
Her family, part of a caravan of thousands traveling from Central America to the U.S., ran away from the tear gas in front of the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.
Reuters / Kim Kyung Hoon
As for Trump’s assertion that the tear gas used was the “very safe” kind—tear gas is a chemical weapon. It was initially used in WWII and now international treaties forbid its use in war. The gas, which is actually suspended particles of nerve agent, causes the civilians it is used upon to choke, experience burning sensations, and, in some cases, causes (hopefully temporary) blindness. It can also kill. Thirty-seven people, for instance, died in Egypt of asphyxiation after being tear gassed. Because of its effects, doctors agree that tear gas is especially not “very safe” to use on children.
It is not Trump that concerns me. Trump’s legacy is already written in pure, steaming shit. What shocks me the most, is the number of people who hear that we are using chemical weapons on toddlers and attempt to defend that practice.
There are those who wonder along with Trump, “Why is a parent running up into an area where they know the tear gas is forming and it’s going to be formed and they were running up with a child?"
Do you think the Irish wanted to take their children on unsanitary, typhus-ridden “coffin ships” so they could come to America? No, they boarded those ships because they were dying by the million back in Ireland in the 1840s due to famine.
When people in California flee their burning houses, we do not tell them to go back into the flames instead of running outside, where there is dangerous smoke, which will save their lives. We accept that people leave places where it is unsafe, and try to go places where it is safer for them and their children. Or, as Warsan Shire writes:
“no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark”
The fact that a caravan largely comprised of people from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are here facing tear gas and turmoil speaks to the state of their countries. Doctors without Borders reports that these countries are experiencing “unprecedented levels of violence outside a war zone” and that “citizens are murdered with impunity, kidnappings and extortion are daily occurrences.”
Trump continues to claim, with no evidence, that the people streaming over the border are “stone cold criminals.” Contradictory to his claims, studies indicate that as the immigrant population goes up, violent crime does not go up. In many cases, it goes down. A simple explanation for that trend is that most of the people fleeing violence are not, themselves, violent people. If they were the tough murderous drug lords Trump describes, they’d stay home.
Trump continues to claim, with no evidence, that the people streaming over the border are “stone cold criminals.” Contradictory to his claims, studies indicate that as the immigrant population goes up, violent crime does not go up. In many cases, it goes down. A simple explanation for that trend is that most of the people fleeing violence are not, themselves, violent people. If they were the tough murderous drug lords Trump describes, they’d stay home.
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A Century of U.S. Intervention Created the Immigration Crisis
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