Ganna and Bradley Harrison take a photograph collectively in Yellowstone Nationwide Park in Wyoming on July 30, 2019. Bradley Harrison
Is that this what President Joe Biden meant by opening the“full vary of authorized pathways” to assist Ukrainian refugees come to America?
Did he imply throwing them in cells — 22 in a single that's 30 sq. meters, with a bench that would seat three individuals, at most, and with one bathroom, uncovered in the midst of the room for all to make use of?
Did he imply for individuals who had escaped the hell of cluster bombs and fixed shelling, who view America because the beacon of liberty, to sleep on a yoga mat with one foil blanket, utilizing their footwear for a pillow?
Did he imply for them to be on this house for days at a time with no exterior contact, nobody prepared to reply questions and no info as to once they is likely to be launched, or the place?
And did he imply for these situations to be the identical for pregnant girls and the aged, simply as for everybody else?
By now, the story of Brad Harrison of Utah, his Ukrainian spouse Ganna (recognized by her buddies as Anna), and their younger daughter Sofia, an American citizen, has been recounted by the Deseret Information and different media retailers. She spent almost 5 days in what might finest be described as a jail, and she or he was something however alone.
Their story has a contented ending. Once I spoke to the household on Tuesday, they have been in a automotive, driving north of San Diego on their method to Utah. However the harrowing expertise Ganna needed to endure — after escaping her dwelling in Kharkiv amid fixed shelling — was nonetheless contemporary on her thoughts.
And the actual motive she needed to endure it should be clear. Washington’s good intentions towards Ukrainian refugees has run headlong into Washington’s personal failure, for many years, to move any significant form of immigration reform or present for a workable processing system on the southern border.
Border patrol brokers are used to dealing with Latin American immigrants, not individuals from Ukraine, Russia and different neighboring nations who've escaped struggle by flying to Mexico, the place no visa is required, in hopes of getting into the US from the south. They apparently are used to treating all they encounter as criminals and giving them substandard care.
It should be apparent that nobody, no matter pores and skin coloration or nation of origin, ought to be handled the best way Ganna described her ordeal.
However the border is ill-equipped to deal with individuals humanely. We’ve recognized this for a few years and thru a number of administrations. The Ukrainian disaster has solely introduced it into excessive aid. Perhaps this can be sufficient to drive change; to interrupt via the political boundaries that appear as rock strong because the doorways that saved Ganna imprisoned.
A report by Reuters stated that, as of Sunday night time, an estimated 1,700 Ukrainians had arrived in Tijuana, the place Ganna finally crossed the border. The numbers are anticipated to develop. Like Ganna, that they had heard Biden say they might be welcomed, in order that they got here.
And not using a higher system — with out translators who communicate Ukrainian and Russian and a pointy improve each in medical professionals and authorities who can course of paperwork — the goodwill of Individuals anxious to assist shell-shocked Europeans will bitter because the U.S. places them via extra useless struggling.
In Ganna’s case, she had the help of Utah’s two senators, Mike Lee and Mitt Romney, in addition to state Sen. Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork, who had been instructed of her arrival prematurely. Collectively, these politicians had despatched letters and emails to frame officers explaining when Brad and Ganna would arrive, what kind of automotive they have been driving, what her state of affairs was, and instructing them to offer her humanitarian parole.
However when Brad, an Air Power veteran, pulled the household as much as the border station, none of this mattered.
“She was immediately a legal,” Brad stated. “I actually respect all of the work these senators did, but it surely was for naught. They (border patrol brokers) completely went into robotic mode on the border and took her into custody.”
She was allowed a suitcase with a change of garments, however this was shortly confiscated, as was her jewellery and her cellphone.
“We used each sq. centimeter (of the cell),” she instructed me. “It was like in a film scene. Thrice they fed us per day, at 6:30 a.m., 12 and 5 p.m. — chilly sandwiches, one apple, one juice, water from a faucet subsequent to the bathroom. No time, no clock, no window. Solely chilly air from the air conditioner.”
Ganna additionally had the good thing about an lawyer Brad had employed to attempt to win her launch, however this didn’t assist, both. Border patrol saved telling him that they had no document of Ganna. Officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, stated the identical. She appeared misplaced in an impersonal system.
She speaks English, so she made herself helpful translating, serving to different refugees who didn’t know what was occurring.
She described one aged girl together with her grown daughter, who entered the cell wide-eyed and frightened. “These individuals have been saying, ‘Why are we right here? We simply didn’t do something legal. We have now a sister within the USA we're going to meet.’”
She comforted them by saying it might solely be a few days, however she knew it most likely could be longer.
In the long run, Ganna’s case was heard and she or he was set free a door into America. Officers refused to name her husband, she stated, although he had given the officers his quantity. Her cellphone was returned to her with no cost. Border brokers pointed her towards a McDonald’s and instructed her she may get assist there. She discovered a safety guard within the restaurant who let her use his cellphone.
Brad stated it regarded as if most individuals who got here to the detention facility finally have been admitted to the US. I’m not so sure.
What I'm sure of is that the nation’s southern border is a multitude, that many politicians are accountable, and that the US should do higher at treating all individuals as human beings deserving of compassion.