Today, most Americans recognize the 1940’s internment of American citizens of Japanese descent as immoral, illegal, and certainly lamentable. How tragic that America is again on the verge of incarcerating a new generation, this time of would-be immigrants. Hundreds and thousands of people are so desperate for a better life that they flee to the United States of America – knowing that the country’s leader says they are not wanted – and once here are placed in pens, cages, jails and prisons. Our government is paying for-profit companies with arguably no supervision and no oversight to hold these human beings – for unlimited time in subhuman conditions.
Judaism has a strong tradition of calling for loving the stranger (Deut 10:19) because we were strangers in a strange land. Two of the most powerful values Judaism teaches are the dignity of all creatures (k’vod habriyot) and b’tzelem Elohim, the firm belief that each and every human being is created in the image and likeness of God.
Our tradition values children. They are our future and our hope. Yet today in this country, we leave them in outdoor detention pens – with no diapers for babies, no toothpaste, no soap, often no clothes to speak of, and certainly no toys.
Children must be reunited with their families immediately and everyone seeking asylum at our borders deserves a fair hearing. We need more judges and more adjudication of asylum seekers at our borders, not more camps. We need more humanity and sympathy. Not more camps.
Further, we continue our support for a fair immigration policy that guarantees due process in immigration proceedings and protects the civil liberties of immigrants. We vehemently oppose capricious immigration raids like the one recently proposed.
To detain human beings in prison-like conditions, for undetermined amounts of time, despite the fact that they are not charged with any crime is unconscionable. Today’s transfer of children is only the first of many critical steps needed. The detention centers must be closed. Now. The United States of America and the Jewish community know this all too well from our histories. When we say never again, we mean it.
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
Rabbinical Assembly
Cantors Assembly
Jewish Educators Assembly
The Jewish Theological Seminary
Jewish Youth Directors Association
Masorti Olami
MERCAZ Olami
MERCAZ USA
Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano
The North American Association of Synagogue Executives
