STOP CALLING THEM MIGRANTS: FLEEING WHEN HOME IS THE MOUTH OF A SHARK.
As I write, I’m on maternity leave from my job as an immigration lawyer. I’m caring for my baby daughter while continuing to follow the news on immigration policy – and triage some work that I couldn’t put aside.
From my home office, I watch the news on the families and unaccompanied children continuing to risk their lives to come to the United States across the southern border and I feel compelled to clearly state a truth missing from most public discourse on Central American immigrants coming across our southern border. The families and children who come by the thousands to our border are fleeing targeted violence. They are not simply migrants seeking better economic opportunities; they’re running for their lives. Therefore, they are better referred to as “asylum seekers” or “refugees.”
Reasonable minds can differ about American refugee policy. But it’s important to recognize that the majority of people coming to our southern border today (and for several years now) is seeking protection from violence.
Maybe it’s because I have an infant daughter at home now. But now more than ever, it’s glaringly clear to me that when mothers with infants flee their countries, leaving their homes and all their worldly possessions behind, they are forced to leave.
What’s propelling so many families with children to come here now is violence.
That’s right, refugees – people fleeing their countries for fear for their lives. Of course Central Americans, as people coming from an extremely poor region, doubtless also seek better lives in the United States. But the region has been economically poor for decades. What’s propelling so many families and children to come here now is violence. In my career as an immigration attorney, I can say that the majority of my clients are Central Americans and the overwhelming majority of them came here because they are afraid to remain in their home countries.
I have spoken with more than one Central American father, visibly trembling and tearing up while in my office recounting the terror they felt due to extreme violence they experienced at home.
No one leaves home, unless home is the mouth of a shark.
I have written before about the organized criminal groups that have taken control over large swaths of territory in the Central American countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. The term “gang” is a pitiful misnomer for the well armed, well financed, and well organized mafia-like groups that wield control over most of these countries, while the police there have either lost the ability to protect the people or have acquiesced to the superior fire power of these ruthless criminal groups.
This is a hard truth that I think some of us are unprepared to accept. We Americans often think that refugees come from places like Syria or Iraq, not from Central America - not from so close to the United States.
I leave you with this poem by a refugee that explains a basic truth that is not often stated: No one leaves home, unless home is the mouth of a shark. The themes of violence in this poem are similar to the stories of violence Central American clients have told me.
__________________________
no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well
your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.
no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilet
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.
you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied
no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough
the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off
or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child’s body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important
no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying —
leave,
run away from me now
i don’t know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here
-- “Home” by poet Warsan Shire.