In 1912 and 1921, my father's family arrived in New York from Czarist Russia. There were as yet few restrictions on immigrants from their part of the world and they were able to escape persecution and death. I'm sure there were many community organizations, by and for immigrants, who helped them. Even so, their life was difficult for many years until they were able to settle in. The stories of immigrants today are similar, but they also face a much more hostile Federal government that is actively persecuting them. Never before have such blatant violations of US laws and international obligations for asylum been so widely and deeply violated against immigrants.
The oldest story in human history is that people move from someplace bad to someplace better. This will only increase as increased floods, droughts and fires drive people all over the world out of their homelands. We may even have internal refugees soon in the US. We cannot stop this, but we can make it humane and productive for all of us. We never lose as a society when we let new people contribute what they can. So please support this drive to help raise money for refugees and other immigrants.
