Every day there are news reports of people wandering around the globe. They are seeking refuge or asylum or a better life. Some might be carrying whatever worldly goods they can or just fleeing with the shirts on their backs. Most have the idea that wherever they are headed will be better than where they came from.
What happens when they arrive?
They may be taken in by friends or family, but just like most relatives who overstay their welcome, it is time to move on. Where?
If a family or a single person has no employment, no money, no shelter, no medical care, and perhaps a child or children; who will take care of them?
The humanitarians among us will create food lines, gather thrift shop clothing, give away some toys and offer a hand, but even the best of us can wear out. And the donations can run out.
So, what do we do with ALL these people?
If a busload of strangers arrived in your town, without any direction, what do the city officials do? If left alone, they will just enroll in the homeless community using whatever they can do to survive.
If there are dozens, maybe hundreds of busloads, how will the neighbor’s cope. What about security? Housing and food? Education and language? Employment? Are they here to take jobs? Do they bring disease?
And who pays for it?
In the interim to figure out all these details, what do we do with ALL these people?
Find a plot of land and set up a tent city? Whose land? Put up a fence? Sanitation? Who can come and go as they please?
Detention is the process whereby a state or private citizen lawfully holds a person by removing their freedom or liberty at that time. This can be due to criminal charges preferred against the individual pursuant to a prosecution or to protect a person or property. Custody, imprisonment, confinement, incarceration or internment camps?
Who will be hired to process all these newcomers to get them assimilated? What will be the laws and restrictions on employment, housing, education, transportation and integration take to this diverse group into a new culture?
One side of my family came here in the late 1600s. The other side of the family came in the mid-1700s. Why they left their homes across the ocean is unknown. They could have been given a plot from the King to colonize the new Americas. They could have been escaping persecution from religious, political, financial or other pressures. They could have just heard the ’new country’ was the place to go with wealth in them-there-hills.
The King expected the new world to help support the crowd with taxes until the revolution. The country was a fledgling of government and banking. Each state had their own money and many deals were made with a handshake agreement. Some families became affluent with crops and ‘free’ labor. Some families supported the economy with manual trades and skills required for communities to grow. Others could not find a niche or learn a marketable expertise except to steal or pirate from others.
The same is true today. As migrants assimilate into a new community. They first depend on family members to find shelter, food and employment. Children are put to work before schooling. Businesses are established and others join construction, landscaping, maintenance and other manual labor not requiring in-depth education. Language is picked up from television, they are easy bait for shoddy payment loans, drive third hand cars without a license and are perfect new customers for cell phones.
Still, due to religion or historical background, areas were segregated for support, comfort and protection. There was a Little Italy or Chinatown or Harlem. Conflicts would arise over borders with the same old prejudice of religion or traditional beliefs.
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