We, the Social Action Working Group of Sukkat Shalom, the Jewish congregation in Juneau, write to demand the immediate end of family internment at the United States’ border with Mexico. Internment camps are not an abstract concept to us. As Jews, our grandparents, family members and others were detained by Nazis just over 70 years ago. We are particularly aware of the isolating and stigmatizing effect that mass internment can have on a minority group. The Trump Administration’s recent change from separating families to detaining them as a whole does not go far enough. Families and their children will remain detained without due process of law.
Jews, like the immigrants coming to our border from Mexico and Central America, were labeled “illegal” and said to “infest” the economy for selfish ends. The use of dehumanizing language likening immigrants to pests and now their wholesale incarceration, follows a familiar pattern. Nazis used an extensive propaganda campaign to dehumanize our forebears to justify their detention. Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime came to power by democratic means. Unfortunately, the good people of Germany did not stand up when it was early enough to act. Today, we hope we have learned our lesson.
Just as internment camps were created by a democratic process, they can be dismantled by our representative government. We are encouraged by most of Alaska’s statewide delegation opposing family separation and detention. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, demanded the White House “to end the cruel, tragic separations of families.” Gov. Bill Walker pleaded for the “cruel and counterproductive “separation of families to “end today.” Even U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, rarely a critic of the president, called family separation “heartbreaking.” Child detention and family separation should particularly move our representatives in Alaska. The U.S. government used boarding schools and child removal into the foster care system to oppress Alaska Natives and break their culture.
The words of our elected officials are meaningful, but their actions can halt the government from imprisoning families at our border. The president may have ended child removal, but he has remained intransigent in defending family imprisonment. Thus, we ask our senators, Murkowski and Sullivan, to lead. Please make the next step and demand that family internment end at our border.
For those already mobilizing against the fascism in our midst, thank you for your work. Your toil means a lot, especially to the families unjustly held at our border. For those who have not mobilized but hold family values, please contact our senators. As Americans, we pride ourselves as a beacon of hope to the world. We pray that we earn the blessing of our good name.
• Will Kronick wrote this My Turn on behalf of the Social Action Working Group of Congregation Sukkat Shalom, Juneau.
