by Julie Steiner
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| "Refugees Welcome" by Omar Ab Abdallat |
A Haitian family's asylum case shows double standard at the border: It took three doctors, a small team of lawyers and multiple nonprofits on both sides of the border to get an exemption for a Haitian family seeking asylum in the United States… Border officials have routinely granted exemptions to Ukrainian nationals while subjecting asylum seekers from other countries to much more scrutiny. That included the Haitian family, who had to wait almost four months to get an exemption. Advocates said their case underscores just how arbitrary and unfair the country’s asylum system is right now. —KPBS, April 5, 2022
We’re opening our hearts and homes and wallets.
We’ve got donations piling up on pallets
for families in flight from bombs and bullets—
their frightened faces traumatized and pale. It’s
inspiring, seeing decency at work.
It’s proof the world’s not totally berzerk.
When strangers need our help, we never shirk
our duty. (If their faces aren’t too dark.)
Julie Steiner is a pseudonym in San Diego, California. Besides The New Verse News, the venues in which Julie's poetry has appeared include the Able Muse Review, Rattle, Light, and The Asses of Parnassus.