Living in coronavirusworld 130 : the US is not a safe country

8/3

even brownstones

Our International Sanctuary Work Group has two interesting pieces of news.  Our Canadian friends report that the US and Canada has had a “Safe 3rd Country” agreement whereby anyone found in either country who had crossed from  the other would be returned to their point of original  entry. The Canadian court has just ruled that the US is not a safe country and therefore any refugee found in Canada who crossed from the  US  will not be returned  to the US. The one caveat of course is that there is a 6 month opening for an appeals process. But the message is clear: the US is not a safe country.

Our friend John from Arizona can not be with us because the US government has just launched a major raid on the humanitarian rescue camp in Arivavaca, Arizona. They cut off the water supply and then swept in  with an armored personnel carrier and 2 Blackhawk helicopters as if this were the Taliban and not a handful of pacifist medical volunteers and 30 Latinx migrants who have just walked through the deadliest stretch of the Sonora desert.  The medical volunteers are taken into custody and the migrants deported with no hearings.  The politics of bullying again. The longstanding  modus operandi between Border Patrol and No Mas Muertos is long gone.  

The US-Canada border remains closed, not due to migration but due to Covid 19 and Canada's  wanting to keep statistically dangerous Americans on ther own side of the border. Nevertheless people keep showing up at Roxham Road and the Plattsurgh volunteers are trying to figure this out as in cooperation with their  network colleagues from Niagara and Detroit. 

In Rockland County, with its heavily Orthodox Jewish community and its heavy use of undocumented labor, an interesting relationship is developing with the arguably  racist sheriff. 

                                                                                               

Make my long way to

Social distancing on 125th 

the bank and back encountering the new social distance markers on 125th Street and the ubiquitous  Black Lives Matter signs in townhouse windows.

Due to communications foul ups, only Russ and later Dion show up for our Bible Study, which is too bad because I was all ready to talk about the next one of Matthew’s greatest hits, the Jesus walking on the water story. I do get to talk about yet one other significant bit of news for the day.  The Chair of the Revolutionary Communist Party, Bob Avakiian, has gone against his over 50 years old founding principles and called on his followers to vote for Joe Biden. Their policy has always been revolution and nothing less, therefore don’t bother voting or working for police reform. But the possibility of what Trump could do in another four years is too much to countenance. Get him out, then Biden in, then talk revolution. The making things better by making things worse idea is morally empty due to the damage it does to real people. On this BA and I are in full agreement.