Australia Blocks Asylum Seekers....

It seems that Australia has begun to close down their borders in a similar fashion to the United States. The Australian Navy intercepted a boat with 85 passengers who claimed to be from Sri Lanka, but many of whom turned out to be from Indonesia. The Prime Minister, John Howard, has won 4 consecutive elections with his hard stance against illegal immigration. Howard won't allow these passengers to get to Australia. He has put them in a detention center just off the coast of Australia. It seems that everyone from third world countries wants to seek a better life, but is that really possible? Can anything truly be done about the world issue of poverty and discrimination? What is the proper thing to do in this situation-can you just let everyone in who comes to the boarders? It is a terrible situation for a government to turn people down, but is there anything that can actually be done?
These are some difficult questions because we are so privileged and lucky to be in the situations we currently are in. It is something I struggle with daily when I think about the lives of these people who have nothing. They don't even have the freedom to come to another country and seek a better life because the boarders aren't open with welcoming arms. It is truly a terrible situation, but I ask again, is there anything we can truly do but to make people aware of what is going on?

Two groups compare immigration detention centers to prisons

This is an article from the New York Times that speaks to a similar cause as the last post. A report prepared by the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services states that women at the Hutto center in Texas received inadequate prenatal care and that children received only one hour of schooling a day. At both centers, children as young as 6 were separated from their parents, and separation of families and the threats of separation were used as disciplinary tools.

The study praised the Berks center for providing adequate educational opportunities and allowing families to participate in field trips and outdoor recreation time. But it says both centers are modeled on prisons, even though they hold people who are fleeing persecution or stand accused of violating civil immigration laws, not criminal codes.

This brings us to an important question: how do we think the government should draw a distinction between immigration detainees (who may or may not have criminal charges against them) and criminals? Do we even think drawing this distinction is necessary?

So Where should we put asylum-seeking family members?

The Washington Post article discusses the creation of detention facilities for illegal immigrant families awaiting their asylum hearings, like the one in Texas and Berks County, PA.
In the past, mothers were separated from their children, husbands from their wives etc., These new detention facilities are presented as an alternative to placing the children out into temporary foster care, or putting the parents into bona fide immigration prisons.
Immigrant rights groups call these detention facilities little more than supped-up prison facilities and request alternatives, like paroling the detainees, placing them in special shelters while they await their immigration hearing. What do you think?

Female Iraqi Refugees turn to prostitution

This interesting report (video) has been prepared by CBS News, and it depicts the plight of helpless Iraqi women on the streets of Damascus, the capital city of Syria. These women are widows, orphans and single parents who have no support and protection. Fleeing the horrors of war that have ravaveged their country, these Iraqi women have no other option but to sell their bodies to make ends meet. One of the Iraqi refugees says "It feels like getting raped every day." Imagine selling your honor, your self-respect and your dignity just to 'earn' a few dollars to survive.
The United States of America has announced that it will accept 7000 Iraqi refugees next year. Juat have a look at the video and think if admitting 7000 refugees is a 'generous' act on United States' part, the country that initiated the war. Do you think if United States should accept more refugees from Iraq? Is United States doing enough to resettle the Iraqi refugees that have been displaced by ethnic clashes and terrorist attcks? And lastly, how effective have been the efforts of International community in resettling the refugees from Afghanistan? (Afghanistan? remember, the Allied forces are still hunting down terrorists in Kabul and Quetta!!)

Guantanamo court moves rejected

Along with the dire, breaking new about Britney Spears' shaved head appeared this article on BBC's front page today. The crisis in Guantanamo Bay does not look like it will be coming to an end any time soon. The detaining of people with no proven record of terrorist activities shocked and appalled me at first, but now it mainly makes me wonder even more about everything else that must go on in the world, and our in country, that is just never made public.

The article also made me think about what CJ ICEman was saying today about there being "two kinds of aliens." Only two, eh? What about the newly coined phrase "enemy combatant?" Are they one of the "dirt bags" to whom he was referring?

One more phrase in the article also struck a nerve with me: "Judge A Raymond Randolph said that accepting the arguments of lawyers on behalf of detainees 'would be to defy the will of Congress.'" Now, I'm not a government major, but I am aware of the phrase "innocent until proven guilty," and that seems to be the polar opposite of what is unfolding at Guantanamo Bay. Also, if lawyers are only defending laws that were already put in place, how technically is that defying congress?

Any thoughts?

Congo at the Crossroads

This Link is a link to a slide show of pictures with narration by the Photographer. It describes the sad state of affairs in the Congo. This is an African nation whose people have seen many hardships over recent years. I would strongly urge you to view the slide show because it is quiet interesting. I think that I found it so interesting because of the research I have been doing about Asylum Law.
Many of the people in the Congo face all sorts of trouble including, murders, beatings, displacement, and overwhelming exploitation. The Congo is a land rich in natural resources and for this reason both the national government, rebels, and multi-national corporations have been exploiting the land and its peoples.
In viewing this slide show you view and hear many things that beg the question why many still remain in the country. They face fears from groups that the government cannot control and violence is rampant. Thousands are dying.
The country has recently held “free” elections in 2006 and the chosen president still faces massive troubles. He must find a way to unite the country and put an end to the violence, which has raised many human rights issues.

A Humane U.S Immigration Law?

Not any day soon -- at least if you go by what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is presently doing. The linked article from the Washington Post talks about the human implications of the recent DHS nation-wide crackdown on illegal immigration.
More than 26,000 immigrants are being held in detention facilities nationwide. Many Americans are unsure what is the best policy: but they shutter when they hear about stories like Leticia Alonso-Silva, the 27 year old Mexican born mother of two, who was recently picked up by the DHS. Families are being ripped apart because of where someone was lucky enough, or unlucky as the case may be, to be born.
There is a need to protect our borders, national security and stem illegal immigration, but come on!

Who would enforce International law when the law-enforces are themselves the culprits?

The issue of CIA operated detention facilities in Eastern Europe and Africa has been debated on numerous occassions over the past few months. Allegations have been raised against major European countries such as, Italy, Germany and UK -- the upholders of human rights-- regarding illegal abduction and transportation of many 'suspected' individuals. Recently, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning the member countries who were involved in covert CIA actions. The Parliament criticized the countries who helped the transfer of individuals to countries where they could be tortured 'lawfully.' The article highlights the underlying hypocrisy of the upholders of human rights who pay only lip-service to the Convention against Torture.
What does everyone think about it?

Asylum for the World’s Battered Women

This article from New York Times discusses a very controversial issue: should the victims of domestic violence be granted asylum or anyother form of political protection? The five categories under which asylum is granted do not accomodate women who flee domestic violence. Though the category of "a particular social group" can be manipulated for some of the cases, but it does not work for every single victim. Clearly, the CAT does not apply to such victims either. The article discusses the journey of one such victim, an Indian woman from Hyderabad to the United States to find relief from her husband's inhumane beatings. What does everyone think about the article and the current asylum law? Is it time to broaden the international asylum law to provide protection to the victims of domestic violence?

The Thirteenth Day of Christmas

This is part of an email that was forwarded to me. Fr Richard Frechette is a Jesuit Priest who went to medical school and speaks 5 languages. He is a missionary in Haiti and runs a tiny hospital there. He also works with mother a Theresa group in Haiti. In his life time, he has been kidnapped, shot at, and had guns held to his head. Those who have met him say he still maintains a “unique clam about him”. He writes these emails every so often. Though the date on this is just over a month old, it still holds dread and humbles those of us who read it and look at the wonderful life we live. Below is his email which consists of several stories of small children getting caught in cross fire, rotting cancer, and kidnapping.
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The Thirteenth Day of Christmas

The number thirteen can cast a shadow of unease. It represents a kind of thin place, through which evil and harm can slip suddenly into ones life and reap havoc. Christmas cannot be exempt, at least on this side of heaven, from the contradictions crafted by the Prince of Darkness. These twelve days of Christmas had some pretty strong contradictions in them, at least in my very small corner of the world. Feel free to delete them and get on with your life. I wish I could.

“Peacekeepers”, who walk around only with drawn guns, seem to be missing the point. “Gang leaders”, who claim to be revolutionaries for a better world via kidnapping and killing, are equally unenlightened (to say the least). But they fire real bullets at each other, heavy weapons at that, and the real bullets shear real flesh.

In fact, in a heavy holiday gunfire exchange in Cite Soleil, between peacekeepers and builders of a better world, a young girl took a bullet into the part of her that was “with child”. An emergency Cesarean delivered a baby that was dead from a gunshot injury, and the mother still is fighting for her own life. Imagine, shot to death in your mothers womb. The young mother still lies before me in my mind, and I witness her life struggle. The Book of Revelations speaks of a dragon, as big as a third of the sky, whose tail sweeps the very stars away in fury, and who waits eagerly at the side of the pregnant one to devour the fruit of her womb. A fairy tale? I doubt it. And our Church knows that it is no fairy tale, too. Our liturgy shows us blood (red vestments) three times during Christmas week: the feasts of St Stephen, the Holy Innocents and Thomas Becket. The contradiction to Christmas lives on.

Up the rusty spiral steps, to four more children who got too close to bullets. While asleep on their simple mats, a “peacekeeper helicopter” fired shots, long before dawn’s light, hoping to hit the builders of a better world in the dark. Blood soaked mats, the tin roof riddled with bullet holes, with one hole the size of a giant fist. The oldest girl is just 19 years old. Her left shoulder has a gaping wound. She cannot speak from terror. She is still in critical condition. The three younger girls have “lesser wounds”: one to the head, one to the arm, one to the leg. They all have major wounds to the soul. Did anyone notice?

The peacekeepers deny they shot from the air. The only other explanation is that the four young sisters fired rounds at each other in their sleep, and then shot holes through the roof, and then their guns vanished in thin air. Nowadays, “truth” is whatever the strongest say happened. Maybe it has always been so. Please pray for them. Especially the oldest, whose name is Estherline.

On the ninth day of Christmas I met Madame Noel, literally, Mrs. Christmas. I didn’t so much meet her as find her on the street, slouched up against a wall, half dead, mouth open and full of flies. We jumped from the truck and picked her up. The stench hit us like
a brick wall, and was unmistakable. It was the rotting flesh of cancer. Mrs. Christmas was about 70 years old, and was at the very end of savage, untreated breast cancer. Untreated? Yes. She is a sufferer of cancer in a country with almost non existent access to health care for the poor. In fact, it would be hard for a poor person to find even a daily vitamin.

As we lifted her into the truck, gagging, with the images from Cite Soleil also fresh in my mind, a passerby patted me on the back and said, “Happy New Year, Father.” You have got to be kidding. How happiness could have anything to do with all this was utterly beyond me. But I thanked him, smiled, and wished him the same, not realizing the power of the grace present in the timing of his greeting.

Madame Noel never spoke except to say her name. To any question we asked, she would whisper, “Madame Edeline Noel.” She seemed to be in a shock similar to that of Estherline, wondering if she was really there, if this was really happening to her. I was completely upside down and feeling lost for the two days that we cared for her. In such situations you feel compassion for what you also abhor. You want to embrace, and you want to run. And your body puts its own brakes on: if you go to near, you wretch unceasingly. And it is not lost on Mrs.Christmas that she is the cause of your wretching.

I can understand now the scene in the life of St Francis where, terrified, he kissed the leper. It was the absolutely courageous and merciful act to bridge the huge gap of such moments, so full of contradiction, I will spare you a detailed description of the wound which spanned her entire chest, and totally destroyed it. When finally and mercifully she died, I prayed over her lifeless body. “May the angels lead you into paradise, may the martyrs rush to welcome you on your way….” As I prayed, I was thankfully given the grace of feeling tremendous satisfaction, and felt myself turning right side up again, and reoriented. There she lay, and that was how she died: in a clean bed, with clean sheets, with clean dressing on her terrible wound, a strong perfume against the stench, IV fluids to keep her from dehydrating, morphine to lessen her agony, and a poinsettia that one of the boys from the orphanage had put on a table next to her bed. Also, she had us as friends: comforting words, daily prayers and the last sacrament. This beat by far the death she faced on a shabby street in a filthy slum. The passerby was right. Grace will break eagerly into the new year, even if only to give a somewhat happier ending to a disaster, and will wander the earth seeking those willing to give her a chance to do so.

Now we are in our third day trying to release Jayelle from her kidnappers. She is three years old. Her mother is sick with worry and unable to eat or sleep. We spent the feast of the Three Kings trying to release her from criminals who see her only as a cheap trinket that might bring big money, and who promise to give us her head on a platter if we do not comply with their impossible demands. We live in a world where heads have been delivered on platters, with no metaphors involved.

On the feast of the Kings, rather then receiving the gifts that would show her dignity, Jayelle was instead stolen from her bed, in the presence of tied and gagged parents, and has become a dispensable object to be bartered for. On the feast of the Kings, also called Epiphany (which means “before your face”, or “right there in front of you”) we are supposed to be witnessing God’s glory made present, and not hell’s cynical fury. These kidnappings are harder and harder to manage, they are completely out of control, and now involve children- some of whom have been killed. The family already gave their life savings and did not get the child in return. Then they called us to help. So far, we are failing to secure her release, and today is our last chance. But I think we will succeed. Even if we do, the poor family can hardly relocate to another and safer country, but will have to continue living in this same insecure world. And if we don’t succeed……..I shudder to think.

Do you remember “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens? Do you remember that Scrooge stood before the ghost of Christmas Present, who opened its cloak and showed two wretched and trembling children? Do you remember their names? They made Scrooge tremble, and they broke his hard heart- so that the real spirit of Christmas could burst into it through the cracks and possess it.

The story I am telling you now is very much Christmas Present. My pen opens the cloak, to me as well as to you. We are not ghosts. It cannot be too late so save humanity, which Christmas reveals to us as also divine.

It is not only Dickens who reaffirms the gospel message. The most striking Christmas card I got this year quotes a Mozarabic text from 9th century Spain. It says that at Christmas we should not pray for Christ to be born again somewhere else, but rather that the Godhead be grafted into our hearts, here and now. Christ can be conceived in our hearts if we have unquestioning faith, and can abide in us if we keep our spirit free from corruption. Then we will live “overshadowed by the Most High”, and be quickened by this power all our days. It’s about having the right heart.

Thomas Merton helps us see with more clarity still. He says that when life and death have the same value, which usually means they are both cheap and worth nothing, it is death that spreads like wildfire and dominates over life. This is the contradiction to Christmas.

When life is precious, and death is abhorred- except when it comes at its proper time and represents the fulfillment of life- that is when life spreads like wildfire and dominates over death. This is the conversion of heart that Christmas should represent. Let’s pray that it does.

The twelve days of Christmas are over now. The tree lights are off, and the wreaths taken down. Ignorance and Want still huddle under the mantle of the spirit of the present age. Will you and I dare to be father and mother to them, on the thirteen day of Christmas?

“Happy New Year, Father.”

Yes, I believe it can be. If………….


Fr Richard Frechette
January 7, 2007