Just a few miles from Plymouth Rock this #Thanksgiving, ICE is holding hundreds away from their families in custody at the Plymouth jail awaiting deportation.
If the Pilgrims arrived at our shores today seeking asylum from religious persecution, they'd all be in there with them
If the Pilgrims arrived at our shores today seeking asylum from religious persecution, they'd all be in there with them
At risk of running this thought experiment into the ground, the Pilgrims likely would have been denied visas once they arrived based on (among other things):
--medical grounds (smallpox, etc)
--promotion of a totalitarian form of government
--promoting genocide
--medical grounds (smallpox, etc)
--promotion of a totalitarian form of government
--promoting genocide
If they'd applied for asylum under current law after some time here, they would have almost certainly been denied due to the "persecutor bar" due to beliefs about/treatment of native peoples. (They would have qualified upon arrival otherwise--after a few months of detention.)
Jst tested the limits of my teaching abilities by trying to explain all of this to my 6-yr-old niece. She considered what I had to say very seriously, and then said:
"The Pilgrims shouldn't have been in jail. Columbus should have been in jail. He did very bad things."
My heart
"The Pilgrims shouldn't have been in jail. Columbus should have been in jail. He did very bad things."
My heart
(Maybe next year I'll tell her about the Pilgrims)
