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Join others at Schools of Christian Mission this summer as they link the geographic study on India and Pakistan to local action. Write a letter to your local newspaper about the unjust detaining and deportation of South Asians, Muslims and Arabs without consideration of their basic human rights.
Below are some sample letters to help you get started. Also, refer to “Tips for Writing Letters to the Editor” for other letter-writing guidelines.
To the editor:
If I can’t reach my son or daughter for a week, I get worried. So how are family members – living here in the U.S., but who are South Asian, Arab or Muslim-- supposed to feel when their family members don’t come home?
It’s happening. But, because we’re concerned about “homeland security,” we’re willing to allow those who are different from us to be jailed without reason or notification of family members. The most recent example happened May 24. The Coney Island Project, an advocacy group in Brooklyn, NY, reported that our government deported 57 Pakistanis from a Louisiana detention center, including three women and four children, without allowing them to notify family members still in the U.S. On arrival in Pakistan they were handed over to immigration authorities. Other immigrants deported to Pakistan have been allegedly tortured.
So when are we going to start reacting? Or not until it’s our own son or daughter?
To the editor:
Many don’t remember the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II. But some of us do, so why aren’t we making links from our history to today? And why are we being silent again?
After 9/11, if you were from 20 predominantly Muslim countries, you were required to register. Now, if you’re South Asian, Arab or Muslim, you can be arrested, detained, and deported without your family even knowing and without charges ever filed against you. At the end of May, 57 Pakistanis from a Louisiana detention center were put on a plane home without their family in the U.S. knowing until after the event.
When will we start to remember the atrocities of our history and stop repeating them?
To the editor:
In my faith, we believe in the commandment “to love your neighbor as yourself”.
My neighbor is not just a person with skin color like mine who believes the same way I do and worships in a church like me. Yet too often we don’t really get to know neighbors who are different than us, what interests them, who they are, and what we have in common. So, if we don’t have relationships, we can look away when they’re targeted for “homeland security” purposes.
Right now, South Asians, Arabs and Muslims are being arrested, detained and deported, often without their family knowing their whereabouts. And because many of us haven’t gotten to know our neighbors, we remain ignorant of this. Now, how’s that obeying a commandment?
Date posted:
Jun 14, 2005
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