Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler routinely pays lip service to the belief in policy that promotes safe and healthy families. Of late this has been most noted in her progressive bipartisan policy to address issues of maternal mortality.
Despite this gesture of goodwill, Herrera Beutler has remained silent on an issue that affects Southwest Washington, that of respecting the dignity of the family regardless of immigration standing.
In this present era, the new policy of separating undocumented children from parents echos of the Japanese internment camps of the 1940s and the rise of fascist regimes around the world.
Undocumented immigrants are our friends, our coworkers, our neighbors and our family. They are hardworking members of our society, and without them our community wouldn’t be whole.
To turn a blind eye on the harm of the most vulnerable is to be complicit in the evil being committed against them. I for one refuse to be complicit in the destruction of innocent lives. It is for that reason I call upon my fellow voters to hold Herrera Beutler accountable to publicly condemning the practice of separating undocumented families that merely wish to seek a better life here in the United States.
This is not a matter of politics, it is a matter of standing with our undocumented neighbors and saying indeed this land was made for you and me.
Beth Vander Stoep
Flagstaff, Arizona
