Did We Kill Anne Frank Today?

Americans didn’t want more foreigners so legal immigration to the United States was intentionally difficult.

Federal policy severely limited the number of immigrants allowed into the country.

The rules were designed to screen out criminals and reject the kind of foreigners that some said threatened the culture of the United States or took jobs from Americans.

The application process was extensive, and many were denied the opportunity to enter the country. Quotas were limited, and filled quickly, with waiting lists years long.

Politicians were elected because they were tough on illegal entry and they put America First.

The United States turned away victims fleeing persecution, oppression and violence and told them to go home. They were rejected individually and by the boat-load.

One boat-load was the transatlantic liner St. Louis, with nearly 1,000  German and eastern Europeans fleeing the Nazis. They steamed close enough to the coast of Florida to see the lights of Miami and to send telegrams to the president and other officials begging for help.

The U.S. turned them away and the St. Louis sailed back to Europe on June 6, 1939.

More than 600 passengers eventually immigrated to Western European countries — countries subsequently conquered by the Nazis. More than 250 of them were murdered in the Holocaust.

They were turned away by the United States, and as a result, they died.

One individual who repeatedly tried to legally immigrate to the United States was Otto Frank. His applications were denied, and his wife and children were murdered in Nazi concentration camps.

The United States has made bigotry the law of the land dating back to the Alien and Sedition Acts, signed by John Adams on July 14, 1798.

Mindless anti-immigration racism in the White House continues to this day:

"We want people in our country based on merit, not based on a draw where other countries put their absolute worst in a bin," Trump said. pic.twitter.com/MeC6Q8QdHs

— POLITICO (@politico) June 22, 2018

Before Western European Jews, the hated immigrant aliens were Irish.

The United States hated the refugee boat people of Cuba, of Vietnam and of Hatti. The U.S. banned Muslims last year, while children died.

Today, when Anne Frank and her family appeal for asylum at the doors of the United States, the family is separated and 14 year-old Anne Frank is incarcerated alone. Eventually the daughters are sent back to the violence they tried to escape, and Otto Frank may never see his children again.

Voices cry for help, and American isolationism selfishly looks away, allowing Anne Frank to be murdered in her violence-soaked home country. Again.

Racists and bigots make excuses — limited resources, incidents of violence blown out of proportion, the quality of the applicants seeking asylum — and Anne Frank dies, again.

Thousands of Anne Franks are sacrificed on the American alter of bigotry. Every death is preventable.

Voices silenced, potentials lost, dreams destroyed, because Americans are too selfish and frightened to share their blessings with the less fortunate.

Anne Frank of Guatemala, Anne Frank of Honduras, Anne Frank of Nicaragua, Anne Frank of Victoria, Mexico will die, because the United States has turned her away, again.