Unregulated Immigration is Enabling a New Slavery
Throughout American history, the nation’s citizens were made aware of immoral practices and policies happening in their society and demanded change. As far back as the 1830s, Abolitionists worked diligently to end slavery in the United States. The crusade lasted almost 40 years, along with a civil war that finally eliminated slavery from the land. Without abolitionists reminding the public about the evil of slavery and the moral necessity to stop the practice, slavery would have continued for years. Although the institutionalized practice of slavery in the United States after the Civil War, those oppressed still did not enjoy the rights and privileges of white citizens.
Less than a century after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, the country faced another moral standoff between good and evil, the institutionalized discrimination against blacks in the South. The Jim Crow laws allowed the immoral segregation of African-American citizens and discrimination in education, housing, and economic opportunity. Although the northern states did not have Jim Crow laws, blacks still experienced discrimination at their jobs and their ability to buy property or get an advanced degree. The immortality of the times was met with another small band of activists, notably Dr. Martin Luther King, who figuratively shouted from the mountaintops drawing attention to the immoral and unfair practices of discrimination. Like the abolitionists, Dr. King drew attention to the problem by educating the public with his famous I Have a Dream speech in 1963. King spoke to a crowd of over 250,000 in Washington, D.C. A year later, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law.
The next moral milestone of the clash between good and evil happened in 1970. This was the year when the Supreme Court ruled that the right to kill a baby in the womb was the mother’s right in the decision of the famous Roe Vs. Wade case. Christians and other good-willed citizens observed the ruling as giving license to kill another human being under the shelter of federal law. Early Pro-life groups such as National Right to Life, March for Life, Human Life International, Priests for Life, and many other organizations consistently work and bring to the public’s attention the evil of abortion and the abolition of such a barbaric practice. Without these Pro-Life leaders speaking out, Roe V. Wade would probably not have been rescinded by the Supreme Court.
The country faces another moral milestone thanks to the new blockbuster movie, Sound of Freedom. The film has documented the horrors of human trafficking caused in a great part by the policy of the United States refusing to close its borders or manage them by prosecuting cartels who are selling immigrants into slavery. The left has reverted to its famous response that the trafficking is a made-up conspiracy theory of those opposed to the present political leadership. No matter what the left tries to do with debunking the facts, the government even recognizes human trafficking on their U.S. Customs and Border Protection website as an offense against humanity.
The government doesn’t tell you that the trafficking of young women and girls into the sex trade is an epidemic happening right under the noses of officials and citizens here in America. Along with being sold into prostitution, the other illegals not chosen for the sex industry are nevertheless indebted to their handlers (cartels that prey on the poor). They are embarking on a modern version of slavery, once considered a part of the past in this county.
There can never be a justification for slavery, yet no religious leader is speaking out against this immoral practice. Slavery is a heinous practice mentioned in the 1965 Vatican II document, Gaudium et spes (n. 27), as a moral imperative, meaning under no circumstances can slavery be justified. Yet there is no condemnation presently by religious leaders of today’s crisis.
Today’s new moral milestone is human trafficking, whether for prostitution or indentured servitude. Christians from everywhere, especially in the United States, where rampant abuses exist, must shout and protest against the evil lurking and being perpetrated in the shadows. Thanks to the movie Sound of Freedom, the atrocities of human trafficking are brought to light, and no one can think the problem is not real. Nothing can be more evil or insidious than treating a human being as a commodity or an object. This is our time to start shouting from the mountaintops and demanding that women and children stop being exploited and manipulated. The time for moral courage is now.