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Columns | Friday, February 18, 2022

We all should be crying

English Spanish

They both cried.

That’s what struck me while hearing Pedro Pans Maximo Alvarez and Tony Argiz recall their experience as unaccompanied children coming to a foreign land.

Days apart, they struggled to contain their tears at dueling press conferences: At the first (minute 26), Alvarez spoke in support of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ plan to revoke the license of shelters that house unaccompanied minors in Florida. At the second (minute 25), Argiz spoke in opposition.

The two traveled similar paths. Both rose from refugees to community leaders, from kids who didn’t speak a word of English to successful businessmen, founders of their own companies, and contributors to the well-being of many in South Florida.

United by memories and tears, they now are divided by politics.

Archbishop Thomas Wenski likes to say that immigration is a wedge issue for both parties. What more proof than these two men?

The governor’s plan directly affects the program that welcomed and sheltered them both: the Msgr. Bryan O. Walsh Children’s Village operated by Catholic Charities and named after the Miami priest both Alvarez and Argiz revere.

Msgr. Walsh’s and Operation Pedro Pan’s DNA are embedded in the system the U.S. government relies on today to care for children who enter the U.S without a parent. That’s what the Children’s Village, once known as Boystown, has done for the last six decades. That’s what 180 shelters, including the Children’s Village, continue to do for today’s unaccompanied minors.

Yet one group buys into the governor’s rhetoric that their exodus 60 years ago was different, more deserving of warm welcome and generous aid, than the exodus of today’s children.

One group came on airplanes, with passports and visa wavers issued by the U.S. government. They were fleeing communism. They came “legally.”

The others cross the border on foot, entrusted to smugglers rather than the Church, fleeing gangs rather than communism and mostly, in the governor’s parlance, “military aged males” ages 15 to 17 (the implication: possibly terrorists). Certainly, they’re not coming “legally.”

That’s where the wedge of partisan politics — in the form of an appeal to magical thinking — rears its divisive head.

DeSantis says he wants to protect Floridians and these children by discouraging their parents from sending them over. He and his supporters maintain that preventing shelters like Catholic Charities’ from taking them in will achieve both purposes.

But that’s like saying he wants to protect Floridians and drug addicts by shutting down detox facilities like St. Luke’s – also run by Catholic Charities. Or that shutting down Camillus House will end homelessness. Those ills, like the reasons people emigrate, are deep and complex and defy simplistic solutions.

Moreover, DeSantis and his lawyers know full well that states don’t make immigration policy. The federal government could keep sending unaccompanied minors to the Children’s Village and 15 other shelters in Florida without the governor’s permission.

So why pursue this fight? Let the governor pretend he’s doing something that appeals to his supporters but go on with the work. It’s just rhetoric.

Except that rhetoric has a cost. It creates unnecessary stress for those who work in those shelters, who, depending on the governor’s whims, could face fines or even criminal penalties for continuing to operate.

Worst of all, it creates unnecessary division. Immigrants have been coming to Florida for decades: refugees from the North as well as the South. Immigration cemented Miami’s place in the world. Studies have demonstrated that the generosity shown to the Pedro Pans – and wave after wave of Cubans who came after them – is what enabled their success.

At every turn, for reasons of politics or the bad optics of desperate people drowning at sea, the U.S. government made exceptions for Cubans, helping them “jump ahead” of other nationalities in the immigration line. Pedro Pans came with visa waivers. Those who entered via the chaotic boatlifts of Camarioca, Mariel or the “balseros” crisis had neither visas nor vetting – just like those entering through the southern border today. But the U.S. responded to these crises with compassion, establishing the Freedom Flights, granting them parole, and enshrining in law – the Cuban Adjustment Act – an expedited path to residency and citizenship just for them.

Why should the Pedro Pans of today be treated any differently? Are they not children, too? Do their desperate parents not love them just as much?

The governor called it “disgusting” to compare the children’s exodus of 60 years ago to the border crisis of today.

What’s truly “disgusting” is political rhetoric that makes enemies of men who even now cry like children at the memory of their journey.

At that, we all should be crying.

Ana Rodriguez-Soto is editor of the Miami edition of the Florida Catholic and La Voz Católica. Read her bio here.

Comments from readers

Vilma Angulo - 02/25/2022 08:02 AM
Ana, your article is outstanding. Your unbiased description of what this means should pierce every heart. You are correct in saying we all should be weeping. I weep for our church, so divided by political rhetoric. I weep for those Pedro Pan children who were present at the Governors press conference. I weep for their short memories and not wanting to extend the same outreach to the young unaccompanied children arriving now. I weep for the Pedro Pan children whose gut wrenching memories supported our Archbishop at his press conference. How well they remember and how profound is their gratitude! I weep for those parents making the same horrifying decisions to send their children unaccompanied to the United States today as those who had to make that same decision 60 years ago. I weep Ana, but more importantly…. Jesus weeps!
Michael Carruthers - 02/24/2022 06:15 PM
Most Excellent. Thank you for your deep words and thoughts.
Angie Fernández - 02/23/2022 06:21 PM
Ana, your article is on point!! As always. As a Pedro Pan who arrived in the US on February 1961 at age 15, I completely support Archbishop Wenski. This is not about politics it is about humanness!! It is about the children and the work that is being done to support them and heal their wounds. It is about the gospel!! Jesus stood by the children and called on all of us adults, to become like children if we wanted to become part of the Kingdom. Are we listening?? Do we remember Matthew 25?? Someone once said we can judge a society by the way it treats its children, And what way is that? Abandoning them? My heart is broken when I see and feel the division that this issue brings. Why why do we want to turn away and abandon the most vulnerable members of our society? Is that what Jesus would have done? The desire for power sometimes causes blindness… Let’s read once again Matthew 5 -7 and let God speak to us in the silence of our hearts.
Francis Reardon - 02/23/2022 04:48 PM
I understand your bias but to refer to "DeSantis" and not Governor DeSantis is offensive to me.
Hope Sadowski - 02/23/2022 01:50 PM
As usual Ana a well written article. What a difficult situation! I guess we are in need of "Salomon" with his wisdom. I also came unaccompanied. Didn't see my parents for 5 years. I have always believed the reason we, Cubans, had "special" treatment was because the United States felt guilty of selling us to the Russian with the agreement between Khrushchev and Kennedy. (Not surprising what is happening in Ukraine). The desperation of the parents of the 60s I only understood when my own children were my age when I came. Yes there is the same desperation of those parents in those countries that want a better life for their children. But the power from the North only knows to send "money" for those corrupt governments that pocket the money and the people suffer. Children are children and they always end up being the victims of the stupidity of the adults. Rather than blame, which there is enough, to go around, why not solve and help the problem. I don't think the Governor called the children 'disgusting", I believe it was the comparison that disgust him. Let 's find common ground and help the children and stop the blame because it takes us nowhere.
jose suarez - 02/21/2022 08:14 AM
You can stop the drama. Everyone knows the church is fighting for the federal money it gets from housing the children.
Maria Soto - 02/19/2022 12:15 PM
Shame on any Cuban who denies the humanity of others in favor of their own self interests. Where is the Christianity in that?
Lisa Shelly - 02/19/2022 10:33 AM
Will a nation without borders, and without laws--be able to stand? Is that where the US is headed? Where will be the next refuge?

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