Let’s be serious. Yes, the Trump administration has rescinded the program that protected some 800,000 children from being deported. They were brought here illegally. Bet on it; they’re not going anywhere. Congress will have the final say and even Trump won’t send them packing after all is said and done.
Newcomers won’t have it so good. But the 800,000, those who played by the rules, are safe.
Anybody with a heart would want it that way. Or so it’s being sold.
But mayors from Sanctuary Cities like New York, Philadelphia and Chicago take it a step further. They want, they insist on more illegals. Rahm Emanuel immediately declared Chicago a “Trump-free zone,” saying, "To all the Dreamers… you are welcome in the city of Chicago. This is your home and you have nothing to worry about.”
Nothing to worry about…
Such comforting words would have been so welcome to Dreamers who sought refuge from the Holocaust.
But somehow it was different for us.
Never mind the Dreamer immigrants, or DACA – Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that leaves President Trump holding the bag.
Immigration in general was different for us. It was different in the United States. It was different in Canada.
The prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, is seen rushing to the airport to welcome thousands of immigrants from Muslim lands.
He is shown smiling elaborately as their grateful host.
They have already been assured that they will have homes, jobs and benefits. The entire feast is theirs.
Asked how many Holocaust survivors would be permitted to enter Canada, the Mackenzie King government of the 1940s explained -- “None is too many.”
Somehow it was different for us. When we arrived…well we didn’t. But the few who trickled in, did so mostly uninvited…and there were no smiles.
Asked how many Holocaust survivors would be permitted to enter Canada, the Mackenzie King government of the 1940s explained --
“None is too many.”
“Nothing to worry about” would have been the preferred response. But somehow it was different for us.
In the United States, FDR ducked out the back door when the 400 Rabbis came to ask him to please lift the quotas.
We were not asking for a better life. That would have been asking too much. To life, L’Chaim – that would have been precious enough.
Nor – except for Ben Hecht, the Orthodox Rabbis, the Bergson Group and others among the few – were there protests on our behalf, to save what was left of us.
There were no sanctuary mayors or governors for us and there were no cities of refuge (though for me and a few others, the “lucky ones,” as my mother kept saying, it was Montreal where we trickled in against all odds, as covered in the memoir “Escape from Mount Moriah.”)
So far as the Dreamers of the Holocaust, the million-plus children – they perished in Hitler’s ovens. It was different for them.
New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva. Engelhard wrote the international book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal” and the ground-breaking inside-journalism thriller “The Bathsheba Deadline.” His latest is “News Anchor Sweetheart.” He is the recipient of the Ben Hecht Award for Literary Excellence. Website: www.jackengelhard.com