Last week the Broward County School Board took a bold step by unanimously passing a resolution to protect students being sought by immigration agents for detention, and possibly deportation. The resolution states that if agents want to enter a county school for information, on, or remove a student, they must be authorized by a county judge.
The school board and the Palm Beach County School district, have also taken steps to protect students from immigration officers, and the Miami-Dade School Board that is scheduled to vote on a similar measure as adapted by the Broward School board, must be commended for their courageous actions.
The respective school officials will likely attract criticism from proponents of the recent harsh federal immigration policies. They’ll likely be criticized for impeding the work of immigration authorities. These critics could argue that it’s against recently declared federal policy for these schools to protect, or offer sanctuary, to undocumented students. The critics could base this argument on policies of the new administration in Washington DC, that implicitly make it illegal for the cities were these schools are located to be sanctuary cities that shelter undocumented immigrants from detention and deportation.
However, these school officials have shown the kind of compassion often lacking from the policies of the politicians now leading all sectors of government in Washington.
Compassion is a quality that’s never lost by most migrants from the Caribbean. Caribbean people are accustomed to sharing food and even their last dollar with their poorer neighbors; assist those neighbors when they are sick, and hold their hand in the midst of tribulation.
This could be the reason why most of these migrants register as Democrats when they become US citizens. In the Democratic Party, they tend to recognize politicians who concerned with treating their constituents with compassion.
Most Caribbean-Americans cannot relate or even understand a party that is based on an ideology called Conservatism. Most find it difficult to fathom how Conservatives – people who readily profess their Christian faith, seek to impose policies devoid of compassion, and oppose policies with inherent compassionate component.
It’s the Conservatives who are opposed to Social Security and Medicare, policies implemented by governments led by the Democratic party to provide for seniors after they retire. It’s Conservatives who oppose food stamps to help the poor purchase food; who oppose government funded milk for mothers and babies; who oppose clinics providing healthcare to poor women; who oppose quality public schools; who oppose a federal programs that assists low-income people to purchase a home for the first time; and it’s Conservatives who want to deny millions of Americans the means of affording much needed healthcare.
Conservatives interpret compassion as a social weakness they have labelled as Socialism. Conservatives believe the state has no right to help those in need because the poor also live in an open capitalist society, which theoretically offers opportunities for everyone to become self-sufficient. But these Conservatives do little to make this theory become reality.
And now, Conservatives find little wrong with immigration agents targeting undocumented immigrant families across South Florida, and the rest of the United States, for detention and deportation even if they are otherwise law-abiding. Conservatives see nothing wrong with immigration agents snatching parents in the presence of their child or children, carting the parents away to be deported. Conservatives see no wrong in students returning home to find their parents are gone, detained for deportation. Conservatives don’t even care about the welfare of these sudden parentless children. Where is the compassion? There seems to hardly any, because they are Conservatives.
One hopes more organizations will act similarly to the Broward School Board in having compassion for undocumented children and families. One hopes those responsible for making laws and policies find compassion to consider the pain meted out to low-income families, those trying to help themselves, and to undocumented immigrants striving to be legally documented, in creating these laws and policies. A little compassion could make a real difference in this “land of the free.”
