Political refugee

“ Nor is it less evident that, over and above the political and public interest of the things done, or initiated, by the new comers in their adopted country, the personal and family annals of the exiles possess, in not a few instances, a remarkable though subsidiary interest of their own. In certain cases, to trace the fortunes of a refugee family, is at once to throw some gleams of light on obscure portions of our commercial history, and to tell a romantic story of real life. ”

“ Religious or political oppression is likely to start up a current of super-representative migrants because it is chiefly the superior who refuse to conform to the will of the powerful. The English Puritans, Quakers, Catholics, the Scotch Covenanters, the French Huguenots, the German sectaries who settled Pennsylvania and the refugee German liberals of 1848 were among the super-representative elements which came to America. ”

“ His friends were still apprehensive for his safety, and I was repeatedly approached with inquiries as to whether in case of need I should receive him at the American Legation, or possibly, even, send a guard detachment to bring him in. The latter I could not do; but, while it is not proper to give specific assurances of protection in advance, I could say that it was customary to grant asylum to political refugees. ”

“ Foreign immigration, which in the past has added so much to the wealth, development, and resources, and increase of power to this Republic, the asylum of the oppressed of all nations, should be fostered and encouraged by a liberal and just policy. ”

“ There never would be safety in it for refugees; you would not find in it a great diversity of races living apart; conquerors and conquered would quickly homogenize,—unless the conquerors had their main seat in, and remained in political union with, transalpine realms. Refugees would still and always have to move on, if they desired to keep their freedom. ”

“ We also face a crisis of more than 80 million displaced people suffering all around the world. The United States’ moral leadership on refugee issues was a point of bipartisan consensus for so many decades when I first got here. We shined the light of lamp on — of liberty on oppressed people. ”

“ In arranging for the escape of refugees and other people of potential intelligence value who are subject to political persecution and hostile pursuit, prior planning is not always possible because they show up at odd hours in out-of-the-way places. ”

“ Certainly many refugees make their escape to freedom from persecution in successive stages and come to this country only after stops along the way. Such stops do not necessarily mean that the refugee's aim to reach these shores has in any sense been abandoned. ”

“ But we shall not be able successfully to defend this dignity until we stand upon our own feet. As soon as asylum is found for our poor people, for the refugees whom our historic and predestined fate will always create for us, we shall also rise in the estimation of the nations. ”

“ Of these there are great numbers within the last few years, being refugees from Spain, Italy and even Poland, driven to seek shelter where they can find it by the political convulsions of their countries. ”

“ Although I am doubtful of the moral effect of this movement upon ourselves, yet I feel no little pride in the fact that this young nation should become, so, a land of refuge, an asylum for the oppressed! ”

“ It is one of the factors which the Immigration and Naturalization Service must take into account to determine whether a refugee seeks asylum in this country as a consequence of his flight to avoid persecution. ”

“ Social ostracism for opinion's sake, personal violence or threats toward persons entertaining political views opposed to those entertained by the majority of the old citizens, prevents immigration and the flow of much-needed capital into the States lately in rebellion. ”

“ If we were ourselves as patriotic as we expect the immigrant to be, we would employ Salvation Army methods to draw the foreigner into the civic fold. Instead of that, we leave his citizenship to chance—or to the most corrupt political agencies. ”

“ The right of political asylum has brought to this country many a man of noble character and elevated purpose who was marked as an outlaw in his own less fortunate land, and who has yet become an ornament to our citizenship and to our public councils. The children and the compatriots of these illustrious Americans must stand amazed to see the representatives of their Nation now resolved, in the fullness of our national strength and at the maturity of our great institutions, to risk turning such men back from our shores without test of quality or purpose. ”

“ Just beyond the political boundary, where police authority comes to an end and where pursuit is cut short or retarded, the fleeing criminal finds his natural asylum. Hence all border districts tend to harbor undesirable refugees from the other side. ”

“ Thus, in the defense of the oppressed, the Constitution is a dead letter.—Hence it is that the refugees, finding protection only in themselves, undertake to help each other. No association can be more justifiable, more pacific, more innocent. ”

“ Why should I strike those men, who, besides fighting against tyrannous oppression, (such it was, Oran,) are also the children of the same soil—our countrymen and brothers?"
"You are the last of the seven," said the refugee, taking both the young man's hands into his, and looking at him with mingled affection and anger ”

“ The training of a great people for a century, the aspiration for liberty of a vast immigration are forces that will hurl aside those who in the delirium of conquest seek to destroy the character of our institutions.
We deny that the obligation of all citizens to support their Government in times of grave National peril applies to the present situation. ”

“ Universally imbued with this lofty and magnanimous sentiment, the people of the United States have opened their broad territories from ocean to ocean, and from the lakes to the gulf, freely to the downtrodden and oppressed of all nations, as a republican asylum. In their Constitution they have written with equal unanimity and zeal, the declaration that to all who shall come within that asylum they guarantee that they shall be forever governed only by republican institutions. ”

“ She told me of the many Austrian and Hungarian Slavs in Pennsylvania, and gave it as her opinion that whenever a political party was badly worsted in south-eastern Europe the beaten wanted to emigrate en bloc to the land of freedom. ”

“ And I've been touched by the generosity of the Americans who've written me letters and emails in recent weeks, offering to open their homes to refugees fleeing the brutality of ISIL. Now, people should remember that no refugee can enter our borders until they undergo the highest security checks of anyone traveling to the United States. ”

“ In London, as in Switzerland, the refugees zealously discussed the question to whom should belong the leadership in the coming revolution. Of course this oversanguine conception of things gave rise to all sorts of jealousies, as will always happen among people similarly situated, and the refugees therefore divided into parties which at times antagonized one another with considerable bitterness. ”

“ Every time a refugee arrived at his locality he visits the unfortunate family with a view to finding out the state of their circumstances. If he discovers they are in need, relief is immediately granted, and the parties placed above want. By his energy and perseverance he has succeeded in forming a society for the relief of all refugees coming into the country, and as President of the same, has infused a spirit of benevolence in the members, which promises to become a blessing to themselves as well as to the wretched exiles who are in their midst. ”

“ That the masses are ill-informed and lack judgment and self-control, is the result of their preoccupation with necessities of daily life. But from this conviction to aiming at a serious oligarchic revolution is a long step. The democracy in its less aggressive form, before the recent developments owing to the presence of an idle refugee population, might conceivably have sufficed for his requirements. ”

“ Among the calumnies perpetually thrown out at me, is one which I cannot pass in silence, because it charges me with ingratitude to the United States, saying that I misuse the generosity of your country, which granted me protection and an asylum, upon my accepting the condition not to meddle any more with politics, but to abandon the cause to which I have devoted my life—to retire from public life, and to lay down my head to rest. ”

“ He would then communicate with the master about his slave, tell him at what time the man would be at his house, and when he came at the appointed hour, the poor refugee would fall into the merciless clutches of his owner. Many persons, mostly young people, had disappeared mysteriously from the country, from whom nothing could be heard. ”

“ The mere statement of the case is sufficient to show that the incorporation of the American tropics in our National system would essentially transform the constituency of our Government, and be fraught with incalculable dangers to the vitality of our democratic institutions. Many of our fellow-citizens are greatly disturbed by the immigration into this country of a few hundred thousand Italians, Slavs and Hungarians. ”

“ The descendants of the men who seized their opportunity, and who purchased the estates of the refugees—often at the price 'of an old song'—generally cultivate anti-Republican politics, for they have the best of reasons to be suspicious of the 'great and glorious principles' by virtue of which property was made to change hands so unceremoniously at the close of the last century. ”

“ The abstract right of every independent nation to afford shelter to political fugitives, has, we believe, never been questioned; but, even had it been doubtful, there are very many reasons, founded upon humanity and honour, why all of us should combine to protest against a claim so imperiously and threateningly advanced. ”

“ From the ends of the earth these immigrants were coming, hosts of them, alien in race and tongue, as well as in religion and morals—people who had lax ideas as to the sacredness of human life and the sanctity of home. They, too, must be taught to keep the peace, and to become loyal to the institutions of the free land where they had sought asylum from despotism and oppression. And nothing but consummate tact, endless patience along with unvarying coolness and courage, enabled the men of the old corps successfully to meet this unprecedented situation. ”

“ Recent information also leads me to hope that the emigrants from Her Majesty's Provinces who have sought refuge within our boundaries are disposed to become peaceable residents and to abstain from all attempts to endanger the peace of that country which has afforded them an asylum. ”

“ Thus they became exiles, homeless, helpless, poor. I advised them to come to your free country—the asylum of the oppressed, where labour is honoured, and where they must try to live by their honest work. ”

“ An opinion—and doubtless an honest one—is given by the Lord Mayor, that any attempt to relieve their wants, in the way found so efficacious for the Polish Refugees, would be madness, inasmuch as it would, as heretofore, prove an absolute failure. Reader, is there anything of the cuckoo and the sparrow in the above assertion? Is it not true? And if it is so, is it not a more than crying evil? Is it not a most vile blot upon our laws—a most beastly libel upon our creed and our country? Is no relief ever to be given to the immediate objects who should be the persons benefited by our bounty? ”

“ All of which things do not lend to the gaiety of nations, still less to that of the allocation-supported refugee. If troops are being moved from one part of the Front to another, the Petite Vitesse ceases from its labours and supplies are cut off from the town. Farther south these lamentable things do not happen, but farther south is farther from home. And there's the rub! For home is a magnet and would draw the refugee to the actual Front itself, there to cower in any rude shelter did common sense and l'autorité compétente militaire not intervene. ”

“ And now kind reader, we bid you a last farewell; but ere the pages of this book are closed, let us speak a word to you, for those unfortunates who abandon their homes on the approach of the enemy to [180] seek refuge in the Confederate lines. Many—alas! too many of its citizens consider the term "refugee" synonymous with that of "beggar." In this idea we err. It is true they are in many instances, reduced to penury, but in their poverty are as different from the mendicant as the good are from the bad. ”

“ The condition of the refugees and repatriates, thrust into communities to which they came as paupers and crowded into buildings which were never planned for domestic purposes, has been far from enviable. ”

“ Hence the Enchanted Isles become the voluntary tarrying places of all sorts of refugees; some of whom too sadly experience the fact, that flight from tyranny does not of itself insure a safe asylum, far less a happy home. ”

“ It is, in the Opinion of this Assembly, highly criminal for a Citizen to be an indifferent Spectator of the Miseries of his Country — much more so, to desert her while struggling for her Liberty — and still more, to seek Refuge in the very Time of her Conflict in the Arms of her cruel & inveterate Enemies. It cannot then be thought strange, that those who love and reverence their Country, feel an Indignation against the Men, who have held her Safety, her Liberty & her Honor at so cheap a Rate. ”