Earlier this month, a photojournalist sprang into consciousness and put a human face on the refugee crisis that has emerged from the violence and political instability in Syria.
It was the face of a deceased 3-year-old boy from Syria.
The boy had fled with his family but wound up drowning and then washed onto the shore of a Turkish beach.
In the days that passed, U.S. politicians such as Hillary Clinton and John McCain would publicly express their sympathies.
I don’t mean to downplay the seriousness of the refugee crisis, but where are the sympathies toward the influx of immigrants into this country, namely the undocumented?
Under current immigration law, no group of permanent immigrants from a single country can exceed 7 percent of the total number of people immigrating to the U.S. in a year.
This is a policy that winds up calculating certain lives as more valuable than others.
This has largely been a political move for the U.S. rather than a policy based on humanitarian aims.
For instance, there is the passing of the Cuban Adjustment Act in 1966 and the classification of Cuban immigrants as political refugees that followed.
This act allowed many exceptions immigrants from other countries do not get.
One of them enabled Cubans to be considered permanent residents in a year’s time.
It’s still in effect today — more than 20 years since the end of the Cold War — but anti-Castro sentiments still remain.
Are they not refugees? Let’s look at the legal definition.
According to the Immigration and Nationality Act: "A person who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her home country because of a ‘well-founded fear of persecution’ due to race, membership in a particular social group, political opinion, religion, or national origin."
The point is, this narrow definition excludes a range of people and experiences that ought to be considered.
Let’s look at the case of Mexico.
It’s a country where more than half of its citizens live in poverty, and it has one of the highest murder rates in the world.
The desire for security from violence and economic welfare is reason enough to migrate elsewhere.
It would seem that these statistics might not matter for U.S. lawmakers.
This has forced Mexican immigrants — who are not able to go through official channels due to quota restrictions — to make the trip along the U.S.-Mexico border.
This has resulted in more than 6,000 deaths between 2000 and 2014 due to starvation and dehydration, according to a report by the International Organization for Migration.
There’s a lot of reflection that needs to happen concerning immigration policy, such as contemplating how some immigrants are warmly embraced and others are excluded and even criminalized.
I’m sure most of you come from families of immigrants who escaped persecution of some kind or were in search of better opportunities, either by legal or illegal means.
We’re all worthy of dignity no matter how we may have wound up in this country, or the reasons why.
In the past few decades, globalization has been a popular term within U.S. political culture, and it’s commonly thought to be a great democratizing force.
People usually refer to the free flow of ideas and possessions related to international trade when speaking about the term. However, why not think of it this way?
The free flow of ideas, possessions and people.
Especially in the face of poverty and violence, I think it’s a great idea.
Aubrey Krampert is a UF journalism junior. Her column appears on Thursdays.
