600 Sanctuary Cities and Obama Selected Ours

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                

Fleeing to the City of Refuge (Numbers 35:11–28). From Charles Foster, The Story of the Bible, 1884.

Portland, Oregon is supposed to be like ancient Israel's cities of Refuge.  The cities of refuge (Hebrew: ערי המקלט ‘ārê ha-miqlāṭ) were six Levitical towns in the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah in which the perpetrators of accidental manslaughter could claim the right of asylum.  Maimonides, invoking talmudic literature, expands the city of refuge count to all 48 Levitical cities. 

Outside of these cities, blood vengeance against such perpetrators was allowed by law. The Bible names the six cities of refuge as follows: Golan, Ramoth, and Bosor to the east (left bank) of the Jordan River; and Kedesh, Shechem, and Hebron on the western (right) side.

                            Oregon has Sanctuary Laws.  

Oregon Is a Sanctuary State

As a sanctuary state since 1987, Oregon stands for the safety, dignity and human rights of all Oregonians. Oregon was the first state in the nation to pass a statewide law stopping state and local police and government from helping federal authorities with immigration enforcement.  In the ensuing decades, the law was updated several times.

To strengthen existing sanctuary laws, the Sanctuary Promise Act (HB 3265 ») was passed in 2021. The Act increases safety and protection measures for immigrant communities through increased support, as well as transparency and accountability regarding government interactions with federal immigration authorities.

It is against Oregon law for state and local law enforcement or public agencies (state and local government offices) in the state of Oregon to participate directly or indirectly in immigration enforcement without a judicial warrant. 

Federal immigration authorities are prohibited from operating private detention centers or accessing non-public spaces in jails.  State and local police are prohibited from acting on non-judicial warrants (see our Glossary).  The Sanctuary Promise Act requires all requests made by federal agencies to state and local law enforcement and government agencies regarding immigration enforcement without a judicial order to be documented, reported, and denied.  There may be exceptions to each of these.

Oregon Sanctuary Laws say:

• You do not have to share and you should not be asked about your country of birth, immigration, or citizenship status by state or local law enforcement or government agencies. There are exceptions.
• You may not be investigated or interrogated by state or local law enforcement for immigration enforcement purposes.
• Your country of birth, immigration or citizenship status information should not be stored or shared by state or local government agencies or law enforcement. There are exceptions.
• Your information should not be shared by state or local law enforcement to assist in detaining you or any individual for immigration purposes.
• All requests from federal agencies to state or local government agencies or law enforcement about immigration enforcement without a judicial order should be documented, reported and denied by the local agency receiving the request.
• You cannot be arrested from a court facility, or while you are traveling to or from court, with any immigration warrant except a judicial warrant or order signed by a judge (for more information about different types of warrants, see our Glossary).
• State or local law enforcement or public agencies must refuse and reject collaboration with federal authorities for immigration enforcement purposes, including setting up traffic stops or traffic perimeters to enforce federal immigration laws/orders.
• You can access certain government services without being asked about your immigration status.
• You can take legal action against violators of Oregon’s sanctuary laws.
• If Oregon’s sanctuary laws are being violated by a state or local police officer, state trooper, sheriff’s deputy, either during their employment time or off duty time, or by a government worker, you can report the violation to the Sanctuary Promise Hotline.                                           
  
  
  

   Obama visited Portland, Oregon.  Here, he's waving goodbye

after his talk on healthcare on April 1, 2010. "When I took office, I committed to fixing this broken immigration system. And I began by doing what I could to secure our borders. Today, we have more agents and technology deployed to secure our southern border than at any time in our history. And over the past six years, illegal border crossings have been cut by more than half. Although this summer, there was a brief spike in unaccompanied children being apprehended at our border, the number of such children is now actually lower than it’s been in nearly two years. Overall, the number of people trying to cross our border illegally is at its lowest level since the 1970s. Those are the facts." 

Portland, Oregon  is one of 600 sanctuary cities in the USA.  Each of the following has a population of over 700,000 according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates for 2019.

 New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Illinois, Philadelphia, Penn.;  San Diego, CA;  San Jose, CA; Columbus, Ohio; San Francisco, CA;  Seattle, WA;  and Denver, Colorado are the largest cities.  Yes, Portland, Oregon is a sanctuary city. This means that the city limits local law enforcement's cooperation with federal immigration authorities.                                           

I am the Jewish Bubba living in the Assisted Living of Brookdale in Oswego Springs, Portland, Oregon, an enterprise that is in almost all 50 states.  I speak for my friends in saying that we were all appalled at the sloppy way entrance to the USA from Mexico was handled in the first place that caused such a build-up of a population wanting to enter so badly that they broke the law and became illegals in order to be free from the dangers waiting for them in their countries.  Many of us have experienced going in and out of the USA and living in other places.  There wasn't enough people evidently to handle the need in the first place, allowing it to develop into something like an invasion. So there you are!  Sloppy work to start with!  I think we will all have to raise cane if you try to take away our cherished people!!!

It seems like every president since Eisenhower has taken executive action  on immigration !   These executive actions have filled gaps in legislation by permitting certain individuals to temporarily enter or remain in the United States when it serves the nation’s interests. They have protected people from specific countries—such as Hungarians and Cubans fleeing communism, Iranians fleeing revolution, Chinese nationals after the Tiananmen Square massacre, as well as Salvadorans, Hondurans, Guatemalans, and Nicaraguans after a hurricane. These executive actions have also addressed individuals who share attributes or possess common equities such as spouses and children of immigrants who received legal status under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 and, more recently, DREAMers through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.  DACA stands for "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals," which is a U.S. immigration policy that allows certain individuals who came to the United States as children without legal status to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and be eligible for a work permit; essentially providing temporary protection from deportation and allowing them to work legally in the country. 

We need our workers to stay!  We love them like our own family!  Take the criminal element, but leave our workers born here in peace.  

Now, it's being handled like the Nazis worked it out with my people, the Jews of Europe.  They also broke into homes, dragging out the people, who were never seen alive again, probably after entering places like Auschwitz.  The 14th Amendment states that if one is born here, he is a citizen.  Doesn't Trump read first before making a law?  Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

 

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

We are all about to have heart attacks with worry about our caretakers and med-techs; cooks and servers who mostly come from Mexico and take such good care of us.  These people are priceless working at a level no doubt of minimal pay anyway.  If the Nazi-group (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). carts away our workers, what will become of us?  Thanks, Trump;  it's enough for us to worry about making our own monthly pay every month to such an assisted life; but now we are under more stress, not good for the heart, you know, and our caretakers show they are also under the strain from day to day now.  

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, so this is also my report for today.  We don't;  we can't have a repeat of what happened to my ancestors with Nazis invading homelife of Jews and grabbing people out of their homes and businesses and to solve their problems.  If my grandfaher, Nathan Goldfus/Goldfoot, hadn't decided to immigrate to the USA, I would have been born in Lithuania and in 1939 at age 4, wouldn't have lived very long.  

The USA goofed up with President Coolidge signing the Johnson-Reed Act in 1917. It was the year of  Literacy Tests and “Asiatic Barred Zone.”  In 1917, the U.S. Congress enacted the first widely restrictive immigration law. The uncertainty generated over national security during World War I made it possible for Congress to pass this legislation, and it included several important provisions that paved the way for the 1924 Act that was even worse. 

The 1917 Act implemented a literacy test that required immigrants over 16 years old to demonstrate basic reading comprehension in any language. It also increased the tax paid by new immigrants upon arrival and allowed immigration officials to exercise more discretion in making decisions over whom to exclude. Finally, the Act excluded from entry anyone born in a geographically defined “Asiatic Barred Zone” except for Japanese and Filipinos. In 1907, the Japanese Government had voluntarily limited Japanese immigration to the United States in the Gentlemen’s Agreement. The Philippines was a U.S. colony, so its citizens were U.S. nationals and could travel freely to the United States. China was not included in the Barred Zone, but the Chinese were already denied immigration visas under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. This limited Jews allowed to enter.  The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia.

As for being a country of immigrants, we don't have a very good track record of caring for immigrants, do we!!! 

Resource:

https://www.doj.state.or.us/oregon-department-of-justice/civil-rights/sanctuary-promise/

https://www.fairus.org/issue/10-largest-sanctuary-cities-united-states#:~:text=There%20are%20approximately%20600%20sanctuary,of%20the%20largest%20sanctuary%20cities.

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-act

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/by-the-numbers-every-president-since-eisenhower-has-taken-executive-action-on-immigration/

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/20/remarks-President-address-nation-immigration

The Ancient Biblical Golan of Israelites, Ready to Double Its Population

Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

                                                            Mt. Hermon in Winter                                                                                                                                      

                                         Skiing at Mt. Hermon

The Golan was originally an ancient town of West Bashan, one of the cities of refuge as told in Joshua 20:8.  There were 3 east of the Jordan and 3 west of the Jordan.  They were cities of asylum, provided for in which an accidental killer was to be safe from the vengeance of the murdered man's kinsmen, and where he was required to live until the death of the reigning high priest.  It was also for political fugitives but proved inadequate protection for them.  The city of refuge was a place of expiation and only operative in cases of contributory negligence.  Grave carelessness could not be adequately atoned for by seeking sanctuary.  

 It was the capital of a region in the 2nd Temple times and had a Jewish settlement until the 5th century CE.   Bashan was in the region of Transjordania, now a part of Jordan.  Broadly speaking, Bashan contains Haurana, the Argob region, Golan as far as Mt. Hermon, and NE Gilead as far as the Yarmuk River. 

                                                       

            Yarmouk is an arm of the Jordan going eastward.  

 In ancient times, it was on the trade-route from Damascus to Arabia and the Red Sea ports.  It's original inhabitants, according to the Bible , were the Rephaim who were succeeded by the Amorites.                                                          

The Rephaim were an ancient people living in Transjordania in the time of Abraham as told in Genesis 14:5. Some of them apparently settled near Jerusalem in the "Valley of Rephaim.   During the Exodus period, it was ruled by Og, an Amorite king of the land of Rephaim in Bashan and Gilead, called "king of Bashan."   who was defeated and slain by the Israelites. Og was noted for his stature and physique.  He tried to interrupt the march of the Israelites but was defeated. Israel was made up of 603,550 members when they started off, losing only 1,820 at the end of their journey to Canaan.  His land was strongly fortified territory throughout the Middle and late Bronze Ages.   Bashan, then noted for its oak woods and fertile pasture and sounding like Oregon, was settled by half of the tribe of Manasseh.                                                                                                                   

Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria overran Bashan in 732 BCE in the Great Assyrian Attack that started in 721 BCE.  It was subsequently under the rule of the Persians in the 4th century BCE, and then the Seleucides in the 2nd century BCE, and then the Romans from the 1st century BCE.                                                                                                               

Augustus gave it to King Herod of terrible reputation who settled Idumeans-or Edomites of Mt. Seir, descendants of Esau, hunters, of which he was one of,  and Jews from Babylon there to guard the country from desert robbers.  

The other Golan spoken  of so often is the Western region of Bashan, named after its chief town.  It was known in Greek as Gaulanitis.  The upper Golan, called in the Bible as Beth-Maachah, stretched from Mt. Hermon to the Sea of Galilee, and was pasture land, sparsely populated.  

The Lower Golan, which was the biblical Geshur, was rich and fertile until the Arab invasion.  The name "Geshur" is found primarily in biblical sources and has been taken to mean "stronghold or fortress". The Bible describes it as being near Bashan, adjoining the province of Argob (Deuteronomy 3:14) and the kingdom of Aram or Syria (2 Samuel 15:8; 1 Chronicles 2:23)

The Golan Heights, from which the Syrians bombarded kibbutzim along the upper Jordan Valley, was occupied by Israeli troops in the 1967 Six Day War (June 5-11), and was extensively populated with Israeli settlements.  Its 1985 population was 22,500 which included the Druze population.  

The Golan was part of biblical Israel and remained under Jewish control until the early part of the common era. Israel officially annexed the Golan in 1981 and the US, under President Trump, recognized it as part of Israel in 2019.                                                            

Legend has it that Safed was founded by a son of Noah after the Great Flood. According to the Book of Judges (Judges 1:17), the area where Safed is located was assigned to the tribe of Naphtali.

Safed is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of 900 metres of the Hula Valley, the Golan Heights and parts of modern-day South Lebanon.  In 1974, 25 Israeli Jews (mainly school children) from Safed, were killed in the Ma'alot massacre. Over 1990s and early 2000s, the town accepted thousands of Russian Jewish immigrants and Ethiopian Beta Israel. In July 2006, "Katyusha" rockets fired by Hezbollah from Southern Lebanon hit Safed, killing one man and injuring others. Many residents fled the town for the duration of the conflict. On July 22, four people were injured in a rocket attack.  I lived here from 1981 to almost 1986 and taught in the junior high across the street from my apartment building.                                  

     Golan as seen from Bental Mountain

The government approved a plan to double the Jewish population in the Golan over the next 5 years. The plan includes 1 billion shekels of spending on housing, infrastructure and other projects to attract 23,000 new residents to the Golan. Around 25,000 Israelis currently live in the Golan, along with around 23,000 Druze, who remained in their villages after Israel took the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War. 

The area was part of extreme southwestern Syria until 1967, when it came under Israeli military occupation, and in December 1981 Israel unilaterally annexed the part of the Golan it held.  The area's name is from the biblical city of refuge, Golan, in Bashan (Deuteronomy 4:43; Joshua 20:8).

"On the other side of the Jordan, by Jericho, to the east, they designated Bezer in the wilderness in the plain from the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead from the tribe of Gad, and Golan in the Bashan from the tribe of Manasseh". (3 places of refuge on the other side of Jordan-from Joshua).   

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

Israel AM-top Israel news

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safed