Pope Francis touches
10-year-old Jersey Vargas, who traveled from
Los Angeles to the
Vatican to plead with him to help spare her father
from deportation. Her
father, an undocumented immigrant, two days
after President Obama
visited the Vatican, was released from custody.
At Vatican, Obama's Immigration Hypocrisy Shines Through (La Jornada, Mexico)
"In their meeting, Obama and Pope Francis issued a call to
'eradicate the trafficking of human beings around the world.' Such declarations
constitute an act of hypocrisy on Obama's part. ... It must be remembered that
the current U.S. president has not only shown a reluctance to abandon his
country's traditional policies of persecution and violations of human rights regarding
immigration, but he has continuously intensified them. ... It is clear that Washington
lacks the moral authority to establish itself as a model on migration and
respect for human rights."
A sign held by a member of the California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance outside the Federal Building in Los Angeles, March 26. The event was held to hold President Obama accountable for the record number of deportations during his time in office.
In
the meeting last week at the Vatican between U.S. President Barack Obama and
Pope Francis, the two heads of state addressed the issue of our northern
neighbor's immigration policy, issuing a call to "eradicate the trafficking
of human beings around the world," to work so that "international and
humanitarian law is respected within conflict zones," and to seek "negotiated
solutions."
Bearing
in mind the upsurge in persecutions of undocumented immigrants and the
consequent violations of human rights during Obama’s terms in office, such
declarations constitute an act of hypocrisy on his part. It must be remembered that
the current U.S. president has not only shown a reluctance to abandon his
country's traditional policies of persecution and violations of human rights regarding
immigration, but he has continuously intensified them. Proof of this is the
fact that his government has deported more than two million undocumented immigrants,
nearly 140,000 this year alone, the highest figure on record, behind which are so
many untold stories of personal and family suffering.
The
frantic rate of deportations during the Obama Administration is not, as has
been stated by the same president, the fault of the U.S. Congress for failing to
pass immigration reform, nor is it a consequence of strictly applying a legal
mandate: if it was, that would not explain why his predecessors, who acted
under the same regulatory framework, concluded their respective terms with a
significantly lower rates of deportation.
Posted By
Worldmeets.US
Rather,
as has been asserted by immigrant advocacy organizations and academics in our
neighboring country and Mexico, the policy of persecuting undocumented
immigrants by the current U.S. government is not consequence of legal
considerations. Since the mass deportations of the undocumented permit adjustments
of the labor market within the U.S. economy, which has experienced a downturns over
recent years beginning at almost the moment Obama took office, it is clear that
these are decisions were taken out of political and economic considerations.
On
the other hand, the U.S. president's call for the "eradication of human trafficking"
ignores the causal relationship between regulations on migration, intensified border
patrols, and the building of walls and "smart borders" - which generates a legal framework for the extreme
abandonment of the undocumented and their exploitation by mafias dedicated to the
illegal trafficking of human beings.
In
sum, it is clear that Washington lacks the moral authority to establish itself
as a model on migration and respect for human rights - a handicap that will be hard
to overcome as long as the plans and programs of the current White House occupant
persist.
