Unlimited Jargon

As if child welfare matters anyway....

This story from Mark Eaton is extremely worrying. Whilst I don't necessarily support illegal immigration and people trafficking, there is no justification for treating young children in the degrading and humiliating conditions described in the story above.

I think Britain should always, without exception, treat people as people. The conduct of the immigration officers described above was completely unacceptable. It doesn't matter where a person is from - it does not give officials an excuse to treat them poorly. It's called racism and it is far worse than, for example, Carol Thatcher's "golliwog" remark which I think was an innocent enough mistake. There was no mistake made by the immigration officials. In their minds they haven't done anything wrong, but I disagree. If they treated a Brit like that they would have been sacked for gross misconduct.

This is a common US trick when justifying torture and such - they claim that the constitution doesn't apply to aliens - It isn't as if the statement "all men are created equal" from the Declaration of Independence matters or anything.

Ultimately we are not barbarians. When people try and give themselves and their children a better life we should condemn the means they used to get here, but respect them immensely for trying and making it this far. If immigrants are willing to suffer such hardship just to reach our shores, one has to ask, what have they left behind and what are we going to do to ensure that everyone, no matter where they are born, can have a decent quality of life?

Labels: Human Rights, My philosophy, Politics

posted by Caesar on Tuesday, April 28, 2009