The Pima County Board of Supervisors postponed its approval of the Stonegarden federal funding which directs the Sheriff’s Department to cooperate with Border Patrol at the border. Before this is approved, it’s important to reflect on our values, and think about whether accepting this money is consistent with those values.
Does our community value compassion? Kindness? Generosity? Truthfulness? Justice for all? If so, then this tainted money should be firmly rejected.
Many have shared the personal horrors and the legal landmines that immigrants and their families, many US citizens, experience at the hands of ICE. The minutes of the Supervisors meeting will open your eyes, as mine were.
“The drug war” is a failure and a red herring. As a primary care doctor and medical director of an addiction treatment program for many years, many patients were addicted to alcohol/drugs. Drug abuse and dependence is a medical problem, not a criminal justice problem.
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Sheriff’s department deputies rely on federal monies for overtime pay. If they need this money to buy health insurance, pay for college, rent or their mortgage, then we should find a way to pay them a living wage. Better yet, we should seriously think about work that would benefit our community, not hurt people.
In the early 1990s, I traveled with a small group to El Salvador, and met with the Mothers of the Disappeared. Their family members had been kidnapped, tortured, killed by government soldiers trained and funded by the US. The pictures of the recovered bodies were horrific. The sadness I felt was unfathomably deep. These women, through their deep faith and love were, unbelievably, continuing to fight for justice for their dead and their country. Latin American asylum seekers are fleeing political and personal violence still and again.
Somehow our border policy is rationalized by “security.” But is fear a community value? The Trump administration has done its best to stoke fear against poor people and people of color: they are rapists, criminals, terrorists, animals, they are infesting our country. Sound familiar? Native Americans and African slaves were treated this way for hundreds of years. Nazi Germany used these epithets in the 1930’s, leading to World War II. Racism and white supremacy continue to be endemic in the United States. White nationalists, many of whom swagger with guns on their hips and attack peaceful anti-racism protesters, are supported by the President and the Attorney General, directly and indirectly. In speech and in action. Those who are pushing back are severely punished; witness the Charlottesville attacks of one year ago.
I travel to Mexico several times a year. The “security personnel” and infrastructure on the Arizona side of the border is mammoth; the militarization on the Sonoran side grows more extensive each year. I suspect we are paying for most of this. And yet, the Mexican people are kind, generous, compassionate, happy to see Americans enjoy their beautiful country and culture.
A wise friend who grew up in apartheid South Africa, whose (white) parents were activists against the racist regime reflected recently that the reason that S. Africa is in such a sad state of affairs is because most white South Africans did not embody their anti-racist values.
Let us think deeply about this. Let us open our hearts. Let us embody our values, not just in words but in deeds. Let us embrace compassion, kindness, justice, truthfulness, and humanity in our public policy and in our personal actions. Let us show up. That is how we embody our values: through our actions. Because cooperation is at best acquiescence, and at worst approval.
Ivy Schwartz is a retired doctor and Pima County resident.
