Refugee or migrant?

The United Nations Refugee Agency has over 140 individual states and nations as signatories (including the USA) to a 1951 treaty governing the treatment of and the definition of “refugee”: “A refugee is someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.”

A migrant, according to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, is “… a person who moves regularly in order to find work especially in harvesting crops.”

While those trying to come to the U.S. from Central America almost certainly want jobs to support their families, the primary impetus for coming here is to escape extreme, out-of-control violence in their home countries, and referring to these poor people as “migrants” lessens their suffering and diminishes their terrible situation. Because in our gilded age of Trump, “migrant” equates to rapists, drug-dealers and criminals.

Please understand the difference. These poor people are not migrant workers following the crops. They are families who’ve been driven out of their country and

I’m sure there are many in America who can sympathize.

Patrick Conley

Colville