Charity isn't Telling Someone You Cannot Help

  With the immigrant, comes the human trafficking. As they come north to America, the traffickers pick them off.
   All of which is being used as an argument against immigration, at least undocumented immigration. They should not be crossing Mexico, subjecting themselves to the trafficking. It is unsafe, and it is wrong. What kind of parent would put his children through these dangers, anyway?
   So goes the argument.
   What do we do? Do we say the human trafficking is just one more reason not to bring these people to America? I wonder at these immigrants, leaving Guatemala and such places, sometimes because of domestic violence, their husbands and fathers forcing them to seek homes far away from their reach.
   I think of the children living in the streets of Columbia, and imagine social workers directing them to the U.S.
   Only to be picked off and trafficked as they come.
   What do we do? Do we tell them not to come? I wonder.
   Perhaps, if we can see that people benefit by coming to the United States -- if they are escaping domestic violence, government oppression or whatever -- then we should help them. Will we, instead, tell them, "No, you cannot come. If we let you come, the reality is that you will be sex-trafficked, and work-trafficked, and human trafficked. So, the harsh reality is that you just shouldn't come. It just isn't safe. This is for your own good."
   We can tell them that, and leave it at that -- or help them. If they are in danger of being trafficked, why not help them avoid that? Charity isn't leaving them in their dilemma, but helping them out of it. They have a problem, and we aren't helping them at all if we just tell them we can't help them and don't want them to try to come on their own because they will just get hurt, and that will just make things worse. "Just stay there in Guatemala, and make your way through your problems there, best you can. That's what we're going to have to recommend. It's the best thing for everybody, anyway -- really!"
   No, helping another person requires helping them, not telling them to make-do in their dump, and making excuses as to why we shouldn't help them. We sometimes go to war to help other people, to give them freedom. But, in this case, we seem to be turning the helpless away.
   What would be so wrong with saying, "Listen, if you are going to be trafficked, we would like to help you avoid that. We will come right down to Guatemala and help bring you to America."
   What would be so wrong with that?
   Instead of reaching out with hands that care, will our hands only slap them back? Will we only say, "Get away. Stay away. Take care of your own problems."