Ancient Rome’s Migration Disaster

Posted on July 21, 2019

We have it good here in America.  We need to appreciate that.  We live in a world that is interconnected.  We need to appreciate that.  In the late period of the ancient Roman Empire when migrants encroached on their borders, the people in charge thought much like Trump thought.  The Romans called them “barbarians,” gave them a label, made them an enemy, a target people could blame for all their troubles (the “Bad Hombres” of their time).

That thinking cost the ancient Romans an empire.  The ancient Romans completely forgot what their ancestors, just two hundred years prior, had brilliantly done to manage migration.  We need to appreciate that too, understand it and study it.  There is a way to solve our migration woes but what’s happening now, mismanaging how the money is allocated, misappropriations, inhuman conditions along with a sideshow of unacceptable bigoted Facebook postings by a small segment of CBP officers, this unthoughtful zero tolerance administration policy, this unchristian administration policy, is just going to make things worse.

We need to quit looking at migration as a negative and start looking at it as a positive.  Fortunately for my Irish ancestors, we had Presidents dedicated to unifying the country with ideas of liberty and justice for all.  There was no demagogue elected to the Presidency, to such a powerful position, who had any desire to fuel the fires of the prejudices and misconceptions Americans had at that time towards the caravan of Irish immigrants during the 1840’s and 1850’s.  The Irish were the “Bad Hombre’s” in the eyes of many Americans who felt threatened by this influx of foreigners to their country but they weren’t.

My Irish ancestors helped make our nation great.  We need to realize we are a nation of immigrants.  Once we do that, there are some real policies that can be put into place.  Rather than being that 30 foot multibillion, very expensive Band-Aid, they are cost effective policies that can help to address the sources of the problems.  It will give the CBP what they really need, what they really want and what America really needs.

We are America, the land of the free, home of the brave, with emphasis on brave.  We aren’t the home of the frightened little citizens threatened by caravan people who are only hoping to escape their unbearable conditions to make their lives better.  We need to start acting like the country we were meant to be, what we used to be, full of honor and integrity and fearlessness, before we end up losing our republic in a way similar to the way the ancient Romans lost theirs’s. We need to grow up, learn and, most of all, be decent human beings about it.