Farouk Martins Aresa @oomoaresa
There was a once in a generation cold winter blast that gripped most of the United States and Canada days ago. The snow overwhelmed government services in some American cities. Individuals within towns and cities had to form self-help groups to get other people that were stuck at home with some groceries, medicines and rides to the hospitals. Like most winter storms, some lives were lost. Life is not as comfortable as outsiders trying to get in may think.
On the southern border of the United States where migrants were waiting to cross, the cold blast caught them in transit. The good Samaritans scrambling to provide food and warm shelters between the United States and Mexico were overwhelmed. Churches used as shelters were forced to turn more migrants away. How can anyone with a conscience not cry and bleed for the migrants stuck across American and European borders in the freezing weather?
Do you think that anyone desperate enough to cross the sea and desert in frozen weather will reject prostitution, organ transplant and modern day slavery in return for entry? Horrible stories have been told and heard by those still trying to cross into Europe and America. When they cry for help wherever they are held, it becomes the fault of the agents that lured them into bondage after paying him all their life savings.
The saddest part are women willing to forgo their children in the hands of coyotes, tonton macoute and janjaweed. You can imagine the wrenching souls of slave women as they watch their children sold into slavery by the fathers that had raped them. These cannot be the great grandmothers of women that are begging today to send their children away with strangers to cross swamps, sea and desert.
Even the children of wealthy parents sent abroad to live with foster parents, suffered deep psychological wounds that were later freely expressed as they got older. One notable football player, Dele, refused to talk to his mother and father. He was pampered at home before he and the mother preferred to be relocated back to mother’s country abroad. The mother could not afford to take him to soccer practice and matches. So, he stayed with friends’ families. Of course, he must have been abused. So he took revenge on his parents for “abandoning” him.
If only those migrants willing to accept slave labor in return for admission listen to those warnings. But there are more than enough to take the risk in order to work for starving or no wages. This may be worse than guest workers but the worst are those willing to work as slaves and prostitutes under the table not knowing if they will ever get paid. Many work at labor camps around the world known as sweat shops or camps. https://ethicalgear.com/sources/why-do-sweatshops-exist
Some people actually believe that it is harder to fight the devil creators of Poverty they elected or tolerated at home than fighting oppressors abroad. It is the same propaganda preached to the slaves that they were lucky to be brought out of Africa into sugarcane plantations. When they were held in bondage abroad, the slaves rebelled. The new migrants beg on social media for rescue, begging for evacuation. You were warned but thumb your noses.
We have to ask about who is more callous. Is it the politicians loading migrants into buses in cold weather without winter coats and dumping them in the cold weather or those loading their own wives and children into unsafe rafts or unsecured boats to cross into inhospitable land they are not wanted. There is no doubt that politicians in Europe and America are exploiting the miserable situations of young people fleeing their countries.
People who are willing to risk the first fortune ever made, borrow money from banks or shady characters would be the most susceptible victims with the desire to relocate. It is one thing if you are down and out without any prospect or hope in your community. But if you are well educated, talented with small savings; one has to be foolish to gamble everything including their precious lives away.
A state like Florida where different minorities have become almost the majority in population is a good case in point. During the past few elections, they have voted for politicians that promise to secure the borders. Most of these politicians are Conservatives. Though the migrants flooding the borders in Europe and America look more like the new politicians that have been appointed as Immigration officers or chiefs, they are tougher on new migrants.
The Florida population have defied the notion that the more migrants are allowed into Europe and America, the more the chances that they would vote for liberals in favor of legal migrants. The fear of being overwhelmed by a different culture, taken over, overwhelming infrastructure and political system is real. It is not only among old generation of settlers but within recent legal immigrants staffed to man the border.
The Conservatives are increasing their voters among African Americans and Latinos. Some of them have come out publicly on televisions and social media attacking liberal leaders of jeopardizing the safety of their communities by allowing criminal elements inside. Indeed, most people would fight invaders voraciously if trying to force themselves into their old countries.
We saw the reaction of Germans when Angela Merkel, the Chancellor allowed more Arabs in. It empowered the extreme Right Party. She never fully recovered until a new leader was chosen. It points to the revival and new generation of these extremists that have made life difficult for legal immigrants and refugees already in the country. So, it is not surprising that those in America and Europe are afraid of losing their comfortable way of life to new migrants.
There is nothing shocking about the Prime Minister of Britain of Indian descent or his Home Secretary Suella Braverman expressing the tough policy on immigration against Indian or Asian migrants. Their loyalty is to the country they serve, not the old country of their parents
This is what leads to vigilantes patrolling the borders of their communities. All of them are not xenophobic or extremists. If they gain the support of the silent majority, they will go further than the average folks would approve. Even constituted Authorities like Police take part in some of the atrocities against helpless migrants. Somehow, most of the desperate people always expect some luck that would save them from the atrocious stories they have heard.