Asylum as a human right
By Andrew Moss
783 words
In the past year the Trump administration has been applying increasingly restrictive policies to block asylum seekers from pursuing their claims in the U.S. The most recent measure, now temporarily barred by a federal judge's injunction, would have required migrants traveling through another country such as Mexico to show proof that they had applied for, and were denied, asylum in that country. That policy would most likely have barred almost all migrants from Central America, as well as many Africans, Haitians, and Cubans traveling through Mexico. This policy comes on top of other restrictive measures, including a practice called "metering," which limits the number of asylum applications processed each day, as well as "Remain in Mexico," which requires asylum seekers to stay in Mexico until the day of their hearing.
The results of these policies have forced thousands of people to languish in shelters and camps in Mexico, while thousands who have managed to cross the border are detained in overcrowded, squalid facilities that were cited in a recent report by the Department of Homeland Security's own Office of Inspector General. News about these conditions, along with the family separations dominating headlines last year, have brought asylum, the right to safe haven from persecution, to public consciousness in a way that it never has been before.
Yet the importance of asylum to the migration crisis facing our country has not been fully understood for a variety of reasons, including Donald Trump's constant harping on his political opponents' advocacy of "open borders." This claim, of course, is a canard. U.S. borders have not been "open" in any meaningful sense for 100 years, nor is it likely that candidates for Trump's job would advocate such a change, any more than they would advocate eliminating TSA screenings or customs inspections at U.S. airports.
Yet the phrase "open borders" still resonates for many people who fear the influx of thousands of people into the country. To a large extent, Julian Castro and other Democratic presidential candidates have sought to address these fears by calling for a decriminalization of illegal entry and making such an entry a civil, rather than a criminal, violation.
But this position fails to address the critical significance of asylum itself as the underlying issue in the debates over immigration. On a practical level, as a number of immigration experts have pointed out, the closing off of access to asylum processing only magnifies people's motivation to enter the U.S. illegally, increasing the number of illegal crossings and putting thousands of adults and children at risk of serious injury and death. As many observers have reported, individuals are willing to take these risks because the alternatives available to them and their children in their home countries – fates involving destitution, violence, or death – have left them little choice.
This is why a human rights perspective, centered on asylum as articulated in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in U.S. federal law, is critical to any discussions of the border and to immigration in general. Human rights are grounded in a recognition of human dignity – the intrinsic worth of every human being – no matter what his or her background or identity may be. This recognition, allied closely to empathy and compassion, helps undergird a responsibility to protect the rights of others, not just one's own. From a human rights perspective, democracy itself is sustained by understanding our interdependence, our mutual ties to one another: ties that cross borders and boundaries.
And contrary to Trump's claims, the U.S. needs immigrants; demographers and economists have pointed to a falling birth rate and to the aging of our population, trends that threaten economic growth and the vitality of our cities and rural areas. Our economy and our communities need workers, and the communities that have welcomed immigrants have tended to thrive economically.
This is one reason why, if asylum is to be fully recognized along with the other rights we value as Americans, we need to disentangle the asylum process from the institutions and political culture of mass incarceration. Today people undergo harrowing journeys and present themselves at our border, only to find themselves degraded and dehumanized in prison conditions. We need to abolish detention altogether and substitute for it community-based, alternative-to-detention programs that are humane and cost-effective.
Making this change will involve many obstacles, but a number of Democratic presidential candidates have made proposals, including the proposal to end for-profit detention facilities, that point in the right direction. These moves constitute a meaningful start. But considering the magnitude and urgency of human suffering involved, the larger task ahead will be to foster a rights awareness that will lead to genuine, substantive change in the foreseeable future.
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Andrew Moss, syndicated by PeaceVoice,is an emeritus professor (English, Nonviolence Studies)atthe California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.
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TO WRITE LOVE ON HER ARMS
Announces Annual
HEAVY AND LIGHT:
An Evening of Songs, Conversation, and Hope
Tickets Available Now at
SEPT 21 | HOUSE OF BLUES | LAKE BUENA VISTA, FL
Melbourne, FL - July 26, 2019 - To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA) has announced that they will be holding their annual HEAVY AND LIGHT event on September 21st, 2019 at the House of Blues in Orlando, FL. The organization invites everyone to attend the show for what promises to be an inspiring evening of songs, conversation and hope, with performances from Jon Foreman of Switchfoot, Anthony Raneri of Bayside, Dessa, SWIMM, and spoken word poet Anis Mojgani.
Tickets for HEAVY AND LIGHT are on sale now and available at https://livemu.sc/2ZcpptG. Bundles for the event, which include a ticket and an exclusive shirt, can also be purchased at http://bit.ly/2Y7aeFG.
On this year's HEAVY AND LIGHT, TWLOHA founder Jamie Tworkowski shares: "HEAVY AND LIGHT is our flagship event. It's our favorite night of the year. As always, the goal and the dream is to move people, from hopelessness to hope, and from isolation to seeking help. We've seen this night spark change, even lives being saved, and that's what keeps us coming back year after year."
In their 13-year history, TWLOHA has donated over $2.3 million directly into treatment, traveled more than 3.4 million miles to meet people face-to-face at nearly 3,000 events, and has responded to over 210,000 messages from over 100 countries. Each month, they connect with 5 million people online through social media and their FIND HELP Tool fields 5,000 searches made by people seeking affordable, local mental health resources.
Last September TWLOHA wrapped their 7th Annual World Suicide Prevention Day campaign for World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD) and National Suicide Prevention Week (NSPW). With the help of supporters from around the world, the organization was able to raise over $200k for treatment and recovery, more than doubling their initial goal of $100k. Over 3600 people donated to the "Tomorrow Needs You" campaign, in addition to the sale of 4655 World Suicide Prevention Day packs. The money raised will help sponsor nearly 4000 counseling sessions and connect 55,000 people to local mental health resources.
As part of the campaign, TWLOHA shared an inspiring video featuring actors Chris Sullivan (from This Is Us) and Jaina Lee Ortiz (from Station 19), country music star Hunter Hayes, who raised $25,000, writer/artist Morgan Harper Nichols, and singer/songwriter Matt Wertz, along with a number of clips submitted by TWLOHA supporters from around the world. To watch the video, please visit: youtu.be/aEzUMnBHHK0.
For more information on To Write Love On Her Arms, please visit https://twloha.com/.
WHAT: TWLOHA presents HEAVY AND LIGHT: An evening of songs, conversation and hope
WHO: Jon Foreman of Switchfoot, Anthony Raneri of Bayside, Dessa, SWIMM, Anis Mojgani
WHERE: House of Blues | 1490 Buena Vista Drive | Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830
WHEN: Saturday, September 21st | Doors: 6pm | Show: 7pm
INFO: http://bit.ly/2Oe92M3 | $22-$25 | All Ages
Merit
Releases New EP
Living With The Low
Available for Purchase: meritpa.bandcamp.com
Streaming Now on Spotify & Apple Music
Recently Featured on New Noise Magazine & The Noise
Lansdale, PA - July 26, 2019 - The wait is over for Lansdale pop punk act Merit's new EP, Living With The Low. The EP is out now and available for purchase at meritpa.bandcamp.com. Fans can also stream it online via Spotify and Apple Music. Living With The Low was recorded/produced by Matt Brasch of The Wonder Years, mixed by Nick Steinborn of The Wonder Years, and mastered by Bill Henderson of Thursday.
"The record is basically a psycho-self analysis of dealing with betrayal within romantic and other personal relationships," shares lead singer Mike Dougherty. "The lack of honesty and loyalty, especially how constant it was in my life then, really played a part in the downfall of my psyche and has made an everlasting impact on how I handle things in my day to day life."
He continues: "Each song on this record has a specific emotion attached to them, that's why we named them the way we did. Despite its light sounding instrumentation, this is a very dark record to reflect a low period of my life. Hence 'Living with the Low.'"
Merit is a pop-punk band from Lansdale, PA. Since forming in 2016 the group has played up and down the east coast, growing their underground fan base with their catchy hooks and exciting live shows.
They will be releasing their third record, Living with the Low, on July 26th, 2019. The record was recorded and produced by Matt Brasch (of The Wonder Years), mixed by Nick Steinborn (also of The Wonder Years), and mastered by Bill Henderson (of Thursday).
To coincide with the release of Living with the Low, they have teamed up with local brewery, Imprint Brewing, to brew, can, and release a blood orange/pineapple/cherry/milkshake IPA dubbed "Pop-Punch," which will also be available starting today.
Touring in early July and fall 2019, Merit sets their sights on pushing further west.
For More Information, please visit:
Website: www.meritpa.bandcamp.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/meritpa
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2REqU0W
Living With The Low Tracklisting:
1. Mediocrity Gets You (Des)Pears
2. Woe, She's A Gravedigger
3. Anxiety Is The New Black
4. Fruit Of The Gloom
5. De-Spite Everything
Upcoming Tour Dates:
7/26 - Hatfield, PA @ Acoustic Record Release Show
7/27 - Lansdale, PA @ Record Release Show
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The US-China trade war: A cease-fire, nothing more
by Mel Gurtov
949 words
The Financial Times reported on July 10 that Donald Trump, at his last meeting with Xi Jinping in Osaka in June, promised to “tone down” criticism of China’s actions in Hong Kong in return for progress on trade talks. Such is the way of Donald’s world: Making a deal with authoritarian regimes is always preferable to protecting human rights. Even so, don’t hold your breath on those trade talks; appearances are deceiving. While news reports cited mutual concessions at the sideline of that meeting—Trump permitting resumption of business between Huawei and US technology firms, and Xi Jinping promising to buy lots of US farm products—Trump’s usual comment (“we’ll see”) tells the real story, which is that the two sides agreed to a cease-fire, nothing more.
Here is what the Trump-Xi understanding did not accomplish. First, it did not eliminate current US tariffs of 25 percent on $250 billion of Chinese exports. Second, it only postpones additional US tariffs on the remaining $300 billion in Chinese exports. Third, China has announced no concession on intellectual property rights belonging to US corporations. Fourth, the reprieve granted Huawei is tentative, though it is apparently loose enough to allow US technology companies to seek exemptions that would enable them to resume doing business with Huawei. Still, the company may be hostage to successful completion of the entire trade deal, especially if liberals and conservatives sustain their objections to the reprieve on national security grounds (such as Senator Marco Rubio’s claim the deal was “a catastrophic mistake”).
Trump thinks he’s got China in a bind: The US, he told Fox News, is “taking in a fortune, and frankly [it’s] not a very good thing for China, but it is a good thing for us.” But that’s fake news on two counts: US import duties are not enough to make up for the roughly $28 billion in promised government aid to farmers hurt by the trade war, and China has made up for a good deal of lost business with the US by increasing exports to Europe and Southeast Asia. Meantime, Chinese imports of US goods are way down, especially of soybeans—as much as 30 percent according to Simon Rabinovitch of The Economist. As far as this latest US-China understanding goes, Goldman Sachs was appropriately cautious, saying “No substantive progress was announced on the main issues in the dispute.” Industry leaders, who were nearly unanimous in protesting Trump’s tariffs, aren’t celebrating the new understanding either. They’re reduced to hoping for the best. Good luck.
The politics of the trade war is central to what is really going on. Trump knows he must credibly claim a win to reassure his base, including skeptical farmers, that he hasn’t given anything way as election time approaches. He knows, and the Chinese know, that a Democratic aspirant is in the wings, someone who would be far more open than Trump to negotiating an end to the trade war, even if not to trade frictions.
As compelling a drama as the trade war is, it is only one piece in a troubling overall deterioration of US-China relations. China’s naval advances, US military aid to Taiwan (a new $2 billion sale is in the works), Congressional efforts to limit visas to Chinese students and scholars, political pressure on US universities to close Confucius Institutes and investigate Chinese-American faculty as possible spies, China’s successful push in Europe for its Belt and Road Initiative, warmer North Korea-China ties, differences over Iran, and stronger China-Russia relations are all signs of intensified US-China competition.
The extraordinary Hong Kong demonstrations, which might lead to China's military intervention to quell, and China’s mass incarceration of Uyghurs and other Muslims—the latter condemned, by the way, by 22 countries (but not one Muslim-majority one) in a letterto the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights—show that, Trump's accommodating view notwithstanding, the struggle for human rights and dignity must be pursued even at the cost of doing business. (See the powerful essay on Hong Kong by the artist Ai Weiwei on the New York Times site.)
While signs of increased US-China cooperation are becoming harder to identify, cooperation in the pursuit of common interests must go on alongside competition and policy differences. As more than 130 China specialists said in an open letter to Trump, maintaining positive relations with China is essential.
They remind us that China does not seek, and has many liabilities should it seek, global leadership. But it is becoming closer to Russia, economically and militarily, a development surely not in US interests. So it was strange to read a New York Times editorial of July 21 that said: “President Trump is correct to try to establish a sounder relationship with Russia and peel it away from China” –exactly the opposite of what US policy should be. The US has far more interests and opportunities in better relations with China than with Russia, among them the climate crisis, North Korea’s nuclear weapons, and of course trade and investment. And let’s keep in mind that it is Russia, not China, that is interfering in US elections.
Playing up the China threat has lately become standard procedure among liberals and conservatives alike, and has caused most Americans to view China as a rival--a change from past years. But the “China threat” thesis exaggerates Beijing’s intentions, capabilities, and allure. Indeed, the latest Chinese national strategy paper, just released, identifies domestic threats as primary, specifically "separatism." A foreign policy based on hostility to China endangers national and international security, not to mention the world economy. A cease-fire in the trade war is of little significance unless these other disputes are addressed and diplomacy replaces confrontation.
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Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University.
