To: The UK prime minister
A new Statue of Liberty to say refugees and migrants are welcome in Ireland.
The UK government should pay for a new statue of liberty on the UK/Ireland border.
The fight about who will 'take' asylum seekers fearful of the UK's uncivilised "Rwanda Plan" shows how far politics in both countries has been taken over by the far right's agenda. Meanwhile we know that 100 million people in the USA proudly trace their ancestors back to the 12 million people who arrived via Ellis island, New York between the late nineteenth century and the 1950s. Those refugees and migrants were welcomed by a Statue of Liberty with an inscription that read, let's remind ourselves, "give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send those, the homeless, tempest tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door".
Exactly the same words can be inscribed on a new Statue of Liberty somewhere along the Belfast to Dublin road.
After all, don't you just love statues.
Why is this important?
The current debate about where asylum seekers fearful of forced deportation by the UK government might try to escape to; is at the moment about the 'problem' of people crossing the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland border. Do you think people crossing this border are the problem governments need to 'solve', or do you think respect for human rights, dignity and the need for co-operation between governments are the subjects we need to make our representatives do work about? If you agree with me, please sign this petition.
