“I know all about refugees,” Sesame Street’s Grover tells “Deputy Secretary Tony Blinken from the State Department,” in a marvelous, now-viral video made in 2016. (Google it if you haven’ seen it!)
“You do?” asks Blinken, who President-elect Joe Biden will nominate to be the next US Secretary of State.
“Of course I do,” Grover replies. “They are the ones who wear striped shirts and blow whistles at soccer games.”
“No, Grover,” Blinken responds. “That’s a referee. I’m talking about refugees – people who’ve had to leave their homes because it’s not safe for them to live in their countries.”
The video comes to mind because today’s #stampoftheday is actually two stamps, issued by the United Nations on December 10, 1959, to mark the UN’s first year of the refugee, which ran from June 1959 until July 1960.
The refugee year was the result of a December 1958 vote by the UN General Assembly, which stated it was “convinced of the need to make a further world-wide effort to help resolve the world refugee problem.” To do so, it would create a World Refugee Year to begin in June 1959, which aimed to “to focus interest on the refugee problem and to encourage additional financial contributions from Governments, voluntary agencies and the general public for its solution.”
Put another way, as Blinken asked Grover, “can you imagine how difficult it would be to have to leave your home?”
Grover responds: “No, I cannot, I would never want to leave Sesame Street.”
“Sadly,” Blinken says, “refugees have to leave everything behind” and then he adds, “even though they come from many different places, they’re just like you and me.”
Also sadly, the problem is getting worse. As Doctors Without Borders notes, “there are now 79.5 million forcibly displaced people around the world-more than at any time in modern history. These are people who have fled extreme dangers, whether to escape relentless bombing, an invading army, gang violence, or other life-threatening circumstances. Those who have been uprooted from their homes often face further struggles on their journey to find safety, including lack of access to essential needs like clean water, food, shelter, personal security, and health care.”
Despite the worsening situation for refugees, the Trump administration dramatically scaled back the US commitment to helping the world’s refugees. According to the Pew Research Center, the US planned to admit no more than 18,000 refugees in fiscal year 2020, almost half the 30,000 it admitted in FY 2019, which ended in September 2019. This means that fewer refugees were settled in any year since 1980, when Congress created the nation’s refugee resettlement program.
As many have noted, such policies are at odds with the “suggestions” found in the Bible beloved by so many of Trump’s ardent backers. It is in keeping with the call in Deuteronomy to “love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Nor is it consistent with the famous verse in from the Book of Matthew, in which Jesus tells those close to him that they are blessed because: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”
Hopefully, Biden and Blinken (maybe with help again from Grover) will reverse that policy. Maybe next school year, as Blinken wrote on Twitter after his video was first released in 2016, “some kids will have new classmates: refugees. Grover & I discuss how to make them feel welcome in their new communities.”
If that happens, I’ll join Grover in saying, “I like you, Deputy Secretary Tony Blinken from the State Department.” Except now we’ll say, “I like you, Secretary Tony Blinken from the State Department,”
Be well, stay safe, fight for justice, welcome strangers, and work for peace.