Problem Chylde: Learning & Writing

The Sanctuary: Building Bridges and Breaking Down Walls

The editorial board of The Sanctuary has developed a comprehensive questionnaire for the 2008 presidential candidates.  (Click the picture on the left to read the questionnaire at The Sanctuary’s webpage.)  Sen. John McCain, fmr. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, and Sen. Barack Obama have received copies, and I am looking forward to their responses. 

The election season is often full of empty promises, of negotiated concessions and of half-cocked positions.  Questionnaires like these help us as voters to figure out where our next President leans on important issues such as comprehensive and humane immigration reform, and their answers will allow us to view their rhetoric and methods of action more critically.

Examples of questions whose answers I’m looking forward to are “what policy conditions would comprehensive immigration reform have to meet before you will support it” (#3), “do you support the switch from family based immigration standards to the merit based immigration system put forth in the last round of Senate CIR” (#6), and “do you support family detention centers” (#15), among many others.  The human rights implications of the latter two propositions have played out very poorly over the last seven years with the ongoing existence of the T. Don Hutto Detention Center (its human rights violations are starting to rival those of Guantanamo) and in the lives of transnational interracial adoptees. 

It is expected that all the candidates send a timely response by the end of July.  We’ll see; if they don’t, the silence will be very telling.  Stay tuned.