The dark fascination with the last moments of the Titanic often comes home on the issue of too few life boats available and too many people in the fatally dark waters.  We tend to follow the movie storyline to the inevitable end with the hero either sinking into the inky cold depths, or being rescued and living on to tell the tragic story.  But true to our escapist ways we never begin the story with the life of the person who had to manage the affairs of the lifeboat and then had to live with the decisions that had to be made to keep the boat afloat.  That is a nightmare no one will find entertaining.  The United States tends to market itself as a kind of luxury life boat to the world and when people swim toward our borders away from dark waters of whatever cruelty or tyranny their life offers someone in the US panics. Every American faces a cruel test of their humanity and spirituality in this true, cold scenario of human suffering.  This sad story is not entertaining, but for us, in this time, it is unavoidable.  

The current administration has tried to avoid the pain of the choice by casting the immigrant in the black hat role of criminal or free loader.  In short they invite people to be convinced these are not men, women, children and infants but rather dark enemies.  That allows for the kind of uninhibited round up of humanity we are currently seeing.  The life boat manager on the ocean did not have time to build the ‘black hat trance’ but had to push away from the innocent and desperate with the risk of the over full life boat. Who could forget the images of that tragedy?

Is the United States an over full life boat?  Not yet and far from it. But we have failed miserably to build the public decision points for immigration into this country.  The current administration tanked the last effort for a responsible immigration policy in order to create enough false fear in the public to generate the last few votes needed for power and cover from past crime convictions. I think they would say the strategy worked wonderfully.

Good will be an immigration policy that sets realistic expectations for admission into the United States either for asylum, as a worker, or a citizen.  Good will be providing supports for the managed immigration that takes the burden of the current flow of asylum seekers and families seeking employment off the backs of the poorer communities in this country.  In short, good is ending the current trend of a Brahmin Immigration Policy where the well-to-do preach open policies while fencing off their neighborhoods.  The lens of history cuts through the trance of an era and we do not want history to summarize our country’s contributions to the good story of humanity with the horrific actions of this administration.   Good is demanding from our Congressional representatives comprehensible, if imperfect, public decision points to protect this nations poorer communities and meeting the needs of at least some of the people responding to the cold waters of failed, tyrannical cultures, economies and governments.  Yes we will have to own and live with what is happening now.  This isn’t a blockbuster movie. We live at a historic decision point fraught with moral implications, the pain of which may well land on our children’s shoulders.