10 | SEPTEMBER 19 • 2019 Views Not A New Problem Your readers’ comments about the treatment of immigrants at our border with Mexico prompts me to add to the discussion. Recently I read A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of Letters from the Lower East Side to the Jewish Daily Forward (Doubleday, New York, 1971). In it, I read a letter written in 1909, but which eerily describes the current situation at the border. One hundred mostly Russian Jewish males, “unfortunates who are imprisoned on Ellis Island,” wanted the world to know about their living conditions there: “We are packed into a room where there is space for 200 people, but they have crammed in about 1,000. They don’ t let us out into the yard for a little fresh air. We lie about on the floor in the spittle and filth. We’ re wearing the same shirts for three or four weeks because we don’ t have our baggage with us. “Everyone goes around dejected and cries and wails. Women with little babies, who have come to their husbands, are being detained … men are separated from their wives and children. Children get sick. They are taken to a hospital, and it often happens that they never come back.” (p.98- 100) Since that letter appeared 110 years ago in the The Forward, Congress made periodic reviews and updates of our immigration and naturalization law. It is not as if Congress vegetated — between wars and economic crises they’ ve enacted legislation providing Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other beneficial programs. Legislation that provides humane treatment for large numbers of refugees, however, remains little more than a campaign promise of 21st-century election cycles. Development of a workable, affordable letters Detroit Edison, Michigan Consolidated Gas Company (MichCon) and Michigan Bell were putting up structural barriers to families when they most needed reliable utilities. The hefty deposit for new cus- tomers, rigid billing practices and bureaucratic penalties — all by regulated utilities — put low-income families at undue risk of being cut off and left out in the cold. 3. Nothing about us with- out us. The University of Detroit law clinic agreed to represent Westside Moms in their action against the util- ities. After U of D secured power of attorney and reached a serviceable settlement with- out consulting with their clients, Westside Moms fired them and rejected the settle- ment. Instead, they worked directly with the Public Service Commission for more favorable terms with Detroit Edison. Westside Mothers went on to win one lawsuit after anoth- er, securing, among other things, an annual clothing allowance, standardized criteria for free school lunches and rules prohibiting schools from using “dry lunch” as a way to punish misbehaving students. Selma never represented Westside Moms without at least one of them present and empowered to speak to her own experiences. For all its judicial and regu- latory success, Westside Moms was just as persistent in the court of public opinion. They picketed Michcon for weeks before securing a first-of-its- kind payment play for ADC families that guaranteed no shutoffs for participants. In 1981 (“Julia was 17”), Westside Mothers marched 100 miles to Lansing to pre- vent welfare payments from being cut 5 percent. “Hello, Mrs. Goode,” Gov. Milliken’ s plain-clothes bodyguards would say with grudging respect and peace of mind that her stated goal to “hound Milliken to death” was figu- rative. To boot, Selma wrote the editors of the Detroit Free Press, “We do need ‘ reform’ in the food stamp program. Get rid of the phonies, who exist more in President Ford’ s imagination than in reality … but make food stamps available to those in need. That $50 a month bonus for a low-income family can be just enough to keep a family together.” At its peak, Westside Mothers boasted 2,500 dues-paying members, whose advocacy has touched millions of lives. All the more remark- able to have captured such solidarity among the sick and tired — parents who just want their kids to have a chance at a better life. Parents who needed to hear the hook from Westside Mothers’ print mate- rials and Selma’ s stories so they could move from the singular to the plural: “No problem is more important than yours ...” Jewfro from page 5 Tobin from page 8 in solidifying the alliance with Israel. The U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal and the re-imposition of devastating sanctions that have brought Iran’ s economy to its knees soon followed. Still, having achieved so much, despite the opposition of the Democrats at home and America’ s feckless European allies abroad, T rump is now interested in talking with the Iranians. That appalled Bolton, as it did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Both believe that negotiations with Islamist dictators will never achieve a thing, and both fear that talks with Iran will inevitably lead to appeasement. In theory, such a meeting doesn’ t undermine the “max- imum pressure” policy that Pompeo and Bolton have been implementing. Indeed, an Iranian realization that they must talk with the United States and make concessions was the goal of that policy, not a war that no one wants. No harm will come from a meeting as long as the president and his team stand their ground on the nuclear and terrorism issues. Most importantly, they must not pay for a photo oppor- tunity by lifting the sanctions that are backing the Iranians into a corner. Though he might not have enjoyed working with Bolton, T rump benefited from his hard- boiled and realistic view of bad international actors. If the pres- ident chooses to listen instead to the voices urging him to undermine America’ s long-term security interests by abandoning its overseas responsibilities, then we may look back at this as the moment when Trump started to repeat some of Obama’ s mistakes in the Middle East. Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS — Jewish News Syndicate. continued on page 12