Hence the decision to assemble a high-level panel to deal with this topic under the title of "Immigration As a Global Challenge." Implementation took place at the SUNSGLOW historical venue, namely, St. Francis College, Brooklyn, New York City, whose President, Dr. Miguel Martinez-Saenz, is a SUNSGLOW Trustee.
On August 9, the College reserved for that event the Founders Hall Auditorium (from 6:00 to 8:00 pm) where Vice President Jennifer Lancaster, who is also Academic Dean, was deputized to welcome the panelists and the select audience.
This is perhaps the first time for the SUNSGLOW management to report to our Board (Trustees, International Advisors, and Associates) through the wider medium of this blog posting.
The panel consisted of Carolina Maluje, Esq. (Miami, Florida) as the first speaker. She was followed by Dean Elizabeth F. Defeis, Seton Hall University School of Law and Advisor to the Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations. The third speaker was SUNSGLOW Vice President, Dr. Zahra Hend Shnayen. Followed by me, as the last speaker.
The entire event was moderated by the Honorable Judge Elizabeth S. Stong, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, New York City. Thanking her for her astute running of this event, I wrote: "No one could have run our event as exquisitely as our distinguished judge and dear friend the Honorable Stong."
And in thanking Dean Jennifer Lancaster of St. Francis College for her launching the panel, I wrote: "If the Brooklyn Bridge is a St. Francis College symbol of connectedness, SUNSGLOW is one of your bridges to the UN and beyond. For it was during the tenure of my friend, the late Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, that a formal statement by him in 1999, declared: "SUNSGLOW is a UN Partner."
Now to a selection of excerpts from what the panelists said on August 9.
Ms. Maluje reminded her audience of her immigrant background. She said:
"I also was attracted to immigration law because I come from a long line of immigrants. It seems that our family emigrates every generation, or so it appears. My father's family came from Syria (my grandparents) and my mother's family from Spain (my great grandparents). I know what it is to be an immigrant and see it firsthand. I adjusted under Reagan's law amnesty and I was fortunate to benefit from it, as well as my parents."
Then she delved into a depiction of the sorrowful portrayal of immigration laws during the present Trump administration. She said:
"Current changes during this new administration have been noticeable. Asylum law has taken a big blow in terms of protecting women from domestic violence and their relationships. Matter of A-B was a case that Attorney General Sessions referred to himself, and reversed protections for women in abusive relationships."
As to Dean Defeis, she addressed the outlook of His Holiness Pope Francis on today's suffering by the millions of immigrants in these words:
"Addressing immigration has become a centerpiece of the papacy of Pope Francis. In his first trip outside of Rome after his election as Pope in 2013, Francis chose to visit the Sicilian Island of Lampedusa, called by some, the "Ellis Island of Italy." At the time of his visit, more than 20,000 persons had died , fleeing hardship and persecution in hopes of a better life in Europe. As he spoke about those deaths, Pope Francis said it was "a thorn in my heart." The sad situation of so many migrants and refugees has been called by Pope Francis “a sign of the times."
The contrast between Canada's acceptance of its responsibilities towards today's immigration issues and that of the US was crystallized by Dr. Zahra Hend Shnayen:
"In 2016, there was an influx of refugees, due to the willingness of the Canadian administration to rescue those whose lives were in danger. In response, I joined other friends to form The Canadian Organization For The Integration of Newcomers. Through that organization, we were able to help those new Canadians in many ways, big and small. From helping them to cope with their past ordeal and present loneliness , to assisting them to become contributors to their new society. So we taught them how to look for employment; how to craft jewelry using local material; how to use the libraries."
She went on to cite the upward mobility of Canadian immigrants to top positions. These were her concluding words:
"Suffice it to note that several Canadian Prime Ministers were not Canadian born. These include Canada's second Prime Minister, Alexander Mackenzie."
Moving on to conclude the deliberations of that panel regarding immigration, I began by citing the UN Global Compact on Immigration. That instrument was announced on July 13, 2019. In this respect, I began by saying:
"On July 13, UN member States finalized the first agreement on international migration. Its title is "The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration." It should come to nobody's surprise that the two countries which facilitated that Compact (meaning a Covenant arrived at by common consent) were Mexico and Switzerland."
On the legal context of that Compact, I informed the audience as follows:
Note that that Compact deals with whatever is not at the US/Mexico border. That border, in history, shall always stand for non-safe, extremely disorderly and the apex of irregularity. These are the results of the genocidal acts and acts of war, committed by the present American Administration. Ambassadors Camacho of Mexico and Ambassador Lauber of Switzerland, said to the world from the glass house of the UN the following:
- Article 10 of that Compact informs us that it is "the product of an unprecedented review of evidence and data gathered during an open, transparent and inclusive process... We learned that migration is a defining feature of our globalized world...;"
- The Compact rests on, among other things, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the Slavery Convention.
The paralysis in American decision-making on immigration was the centerpiece of my statement. Here I said:
"Our dilemma in America is that we have a Congress whose Senate, with a Republican majority, does not act to pass a sane immigration law. And an Executive, who prides itself on saying that our Constitution is archaic. And a judiciary whose 5-4 decisions by the Supreme Court shall go on forever with a conservative tilt, if Brett Kavanugh is confirmed to the seat vacated by justice Kennedy."
So the flow of migrants, hundreds of whom have died from drowning in rickety boats overloaded by the pirates of the Mediterranean, and the flow of immigrants from Central America, whose lives have been put in danger by the US "zero tolerance" draconian policies, are twin companion flaws.
Thus we concluded that SUNSGLOW event regarding one of today's hottest issues dividing our world community. And it shall not be the last.
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