Immigration Policy Starts With Shoes Not Walls: A Lesson From The Foundation for Education in Honduras
By Jonathan S. Henes
Imagine this. Don Jr. calls his dad, the President of the United States. “Dad, what should I do? My house is dilapidated. My kids’ school is a single, concrete room with no ventilation that houses 6 grades and 300 students and there’s not even a working bathroom. I don’t have a job despite my willingness to work and work hard and I don’t know how to feed my children — your grandchildren. And on top of it all, gang members have threatened to kill me if I try to stop them from making your grandson a member of their gang. I could pack up my scarce belongings and leave but to do that I would have to take a long, dangerous journey and then ask the United States to take me in or enter illegally. I feel like anything is better than my current situation and I don’t have any other choice. I need to protect my children, your grandchildren. What should I do?”
Here’s the answer we would expect from a grandfather. “Junior, get your family out of there. It’s too dangerous. Get them to a place where you can all be safe and my grandchildren can flourish. Do whatever it takes to be safe. And, by the way, as the President of the United States — the greatest nation on earth — I am going to provide aid to your community to assure that children and their families can live a better life. The aid I provide will make the community in which you live better, which will mean that people won’t need to leave. And, of course, for you and my grandchildren, I will make sure if you do come to the United States before I can implement my humanitarian policies, you will be treated with compassion.”
Unfortunately, with our current President, we know better. Here’s the response Junior would get. “Junior, get yourself together. You’re a big guy. You look like you just got out of the ring. You’re the heavyweight champ of the world. I have seen you deadlift on Instagram and post pictures of the animarls you’ve shot and killed on twitter. And now I hear you crying ‘boo hoo, I am afraid for my life.’ You’re afraid for your life? It’s a big con job Junior.”
This is what the President of the United States is saying about people from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. He is saying this and setting a policy of forcing human beings to either stay in their country and risk death and extreme hardship or come to the border of the United States and be separated from their families and placed in cages. Is this the United States being the “shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere?”
To make matters worse, the President is cutting aid to Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. He is exacerbating the hardship and making it more likely that people from those countries will feel the need to leave. Indeed, it seems that the President wants people to come to our border so he can continue to make his case for a national emergency and his wall. This is bad policy. This is inhumane. This is bad for America. We are better than this. Much better than this.
By way of example, I will tell you a story. A single story that leads me to believe that aid and care will do more to stem illegal immigration than walls, anti-immigrant rhetoric and inhumane treatment of people.
In 2014, Ramiro Ocasio and I co-founded the Foundation for Education in Honduras (FEIH). FEIH’s mission is to provide Honduran children with a safe and nurturing environment to obtain a high-quality education. FEIH accomplishes this in the following way: building new schools with a sufficient number of classrooms to house each grade; assuring ventilation and installing fans; providing filtered water; having local artisans make desks and chairs for the students; building brand new bathrooms; building playgrounds; providing information about the dangers of human trafficking; sponsoring a soccer tournament for boys and girls; and donating backpacks, school supplies, uniforms and shoes. For the story I am about to tell, the items that matters most are“shoes”.
On September 15, 2017, Ramiro’s social media began to blow up. Texts started to buzz on his iPhone. Ramiro remembers thinking “what is happening? Why is my phone blowing up?” As he investigated, he saw that the social media focus was on a young boy in Honduras, participating in a parade for Independence Day, who was dressed in a grey FEIH tee shirt and a white FEIH hat with blue trim. On Independence Day in Honduras, people celebrate by dressing up and this young boy dressed up as Ramiro Ocasio, the co-founder of FEIH.
Why was this boy dressed as Ramiro? Ramiro wanted to find out. On Ramiro’s next trip to Honduras, he went to the school where this boy was enrolled — a FEIH school. At the school, Ramiro met the boy and his mom. When Ramiro asked why the boy dressed up like him for Independence Day, here is what the boy’s mom said:
He dressed up like you because you are his hero. We are very poor. I cannot afford things for my son. I couldn’t even buy him shoes. He had no shoes. When he went to school, the kids would make fun of him for not having shoes. And the school was so small and there were so many kids packed into the one, rundown room that it was impossible for my son to get away from the kids who would bully him. I was so worried for my son and I had no way to make his life better here in Honduras. So I decided we would leave Honduras to go to America. I was desperate. America was my savior. While I was making my plans to go and seek asylum or enter illegally, I heard that a group called FEIH was building a new school in my community. I didn’t know exactly what it meant but I started to see the school being built. Right before I was going to leave for America, the school was finished. My son and I went to the opening and you (Ramiro) handed my son a backpack, a uniform and a new pair of shoes. Shoes. You gave my boy shoes. I cried tears of joy. I decided to stay. I decided to stay to see if anything would change for the better. It did! Now my son goes to school and he has what everyone else has. He is learning and growing and safe. And he has shoes.
This is one story — one anecdote. This is one strong statement — a statement that says humanitarian action and care is what people need. Walls won’t stop people from leaving their countries to seek asylum and a better life in the United States. Cutting aid will only exacerbate the situation and catalyze people to leave their horrid and unsafe conditions to seek a better life. FEIH has seen that building schools and providing shoes keeps people from leaving — it gives people hope. It only costs approximately $40,000 on average to do this. The U.S. would do better to treat people humanely at our border and spend money to build schools throughout Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. It would cost significantly less than building a wall and will be much more effective. I would suggest that the President skip a trip to Mar-a-Lago or one of his rallies and instead go to El Progresso, Honduras to see how a new school and a pair of shoes is more effective at stemming illegal immigration than a wall. Perhaps if he allowed himself to experience the conditions in which people are living, if he could imagine that the children in these countries are his own children and grandchildren, he would find compassion, which could lead to a comprehensive immigration policy that is a win-win for the U.S. and the rest of the world. I know this is more than wishful thinking. It is fanciful thinking. Instead, we will be subject to the President’s rhetoric and people will be hurt. We should take the recent words of Pope Francis to heart: “those who build walls will become prisoners of the walls they put up.” People don’t need walls. People need shoes.
