[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Support for sanctuary cities

[Karen Aram]

My letter to the News-Gazette, just now.

I know it needs editing, let them do it.

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> The humanitarians in Urbana, Illinois won, in 1986 and again in 2016.
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> The colonialists who first settled in this land of America were breaking laws, by committing genocide against the indigenous peoples here. Further European immigrants broke laws when taking the states of Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, and California by force.
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> Kidnapping and forcing Africans in shackles to come here as slaves was certainly breaking the laws of humanity.
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> Every group of immigrants suffered discrimination when coming here for a better life, whether Irish forced here by the potato famine, genocide perpetrated by the British, or the Germans, Italians, Polish, Croatians, etc., etc.
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> Hundreds of Chinese immigrants were murdered after the railways were built rather than allow them to stay.
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> In 1986 a group of anti-war activists residing in Urbana, Illinois, came together and initiated a “Sanctuary City" Resolution, in order to protect the undocumented nationals arriving here from Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador. They were coming here as refugee’s due to the Reagan Administration interventions in their nations, either by means of regime change, or our “special forces” invading, torturing and murdering. Of course many of these intervention’s took place in Guatemala, Chile, Iran, dating back to the 50’s, and 60’s so we can’t blame it on only one political party. On the contrary, it has been US foreign policy for many decades.
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> CIA interventions/or assassinations of government leaders, in the many African nations, whether Patrice Lumumba in the Congo,  or Steve Biko in South Africa, results in similar upheaval and devastation.
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> The Resolution at that time, #8586-R22 was upholding the Refugee Act of 1980, summarized as: 
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> “Whereas, over 40,000 noncombatant civilians were estimated to have been killed in El Salvador since 1979, with the INS granting political asylum to less than 3 percent of the hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans who applied, and in 1982 and 1983 over 4,800 refugees were returned to El Salvador, with at least 50 of those returned, turning up on the lists of victims killed by security forces or death squads; with thousands of Guatemalans tortured and/or murdered by security forces under government control, since the early 1970’s,……”
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> There was opposition from the local Nazi Party and the local KKK, with Professor Francis Boyle, receiving a death threat, if he showed up at the City Council meeting, to argue on behalf of the litigation. He ignored it, and showed up anyway. One person brought a gun placing it on the podium while speaking, with the police escorting him out. The gun was not loaded, but…….and the Resolution passed. 
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> Again, Professor Boyle showed up in December 2016, minus death threats this time, to argue on behalf of a revised Resolution. Revised because this time it needed to be all inclusive, not just on behalf of the three former mentioned nationalities.
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> All inclusive as a result of further US war and interventions, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, etc. 
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> One can argue that the majority of undocumented come to the US today for economic purposes. A response is, what happens to a nation when it is destroyed or when a democratically elected leader is murdered? A puppet regime is put in place, which generally supports the elites, further impoverishing the poor and middle classes. Infrastructures and businesses are destroyed, causing high rates of unemployment. 
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> Even Nafta which took jobs from Americans sending them over the borders, nonetheless harmed those in those very nations, who could no longer compete with US corporations in their lands, or were often then forced to work under even worse conditions than previous. 
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> Refugees are currently flocking into Europe as a result of USG foreign policies, with the US boundary of oceans between us. Do we now turn away those who are dying, starving, or freezing to death as we once did regrettably in 1939, those Jewish refugees that were forced to return to Germany aboard the St.Louis, most of whom died as a result? Though we were quick to accept the many German scientists, into our government. 
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> For those concerned with the “law,” we need to look at our government who breaks not only international laws but our laws, committing “crimes against humanity" that they do in our name.