Enough of victim-shaming migrants! The world we know is the product of a chain of causative events dating from there to here. What reasons do people list fleeing certain Central and Latin American nations?
How does the Monroe Doctrine’s tawdry history of U.S. interventions, creating and propping up military juntas or corporate bought-and-paid-for despotic regimes, play after 200 years of imperial hubris?
For immediate personal or children’s safety migrants undergo an untenable 2,000-mile trek. Another hurdle awaits. Trump and Biden administrations violate the rule of law and due process, ignoring the legal right guaranteed under U.S. and international law to seek asylum on this side of the border.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott isn’t winning points toward a toaster in Heaven. In stark contrast to the Christmas spirit on Dec. 24, without coordinating with authorities, buses dropped off groups of migrants, abandoning children in below-freezing weather by Vice President Kamala Harris’ D.C. residence.
Christmas Eve wasn’t the first time Abbott played this fouled, hardball political stunt to his base. If the object was also to “own the liberals,” perhaps his own soul is at risk when the trumpet sounds.
What consciousness endorses Abbott’s charade as a remotely good idea? Yet, old habits die hard. There’s an analogy to Jim Crow’s segregationists busing blacks north having things the racists’ way.
Was Abbott as militantly anti-migrant on Christmas, singing his political-theological out-of-tune rhetoric in church? As a professed Christian, “Belonging to the party of Christ” or “A follower of Christ” and 17 years ex-Texas attorney general, Abbott knows full-well much better than his actions portray.
Under the misguided notion non-governmental organizations encourage them to come north, Abbott accused NGOs of illegal border activities. Attorney General Ken Paxton is to investigate.
Being there, helping people in need is touted as criminal? That’s akin to red states’ restrictive voting measures intentionally creating long lines in minority-Democratic precincts. Where cruelty becomes a blood sport, they’ve prohibited providing food or water, though voters must wait in longer lines than in White districts.
Bear witness: Gov. Abbott’s farther removed — literally and figuratively — from that of the three magi greeting the Christ Child in unseemly manger hay. His charitable spirit isn’t that of a Tyrian shekel compared to those in NGOs helping ameliorate horrible border migrant conditions.
The measure of one’s life is the milk of human kindness, compassion and empathy made manifest. It flows like a river, channeling a course through difficult times, making a meaningful difference in others’ often hurting and desperate lives.
In Socratic dialogues, a good person may not be a good citizen and vice versa. That leaves vulnerable migrants at the mercy of an arguably bad citizen and a bad person.
The contrast between Abbott’s disservice to constitutional rule of law and due process and life of Jesus is palpable. His victim shaming, unconscionable.
Rev. Barry Abraham Zavah lives in Alpine, Texas.
