The University of Wisconsin’s flagship campus in Madison hosted an event which compared the migrant caravans from Central America to the Holocaust. The event was entitled, “The caravans, the phenomenon that changes the face of emigration.”
The event was hosted by the university’s Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies Program. A part of the description said that the event will do the following:
“[It] will explain that migrants who abandon Central America are not leaving the country, they are running away from the country, and their profile is different from the traditional migrant. They are, in many cases, ‘refugees’ protected by international law, as were Jews during the Nazi era or Bosnians during the Balkan war.”
The event claimed, in its description, that “caravans have changed the face of emigration[sic], which has ceased to be something individual and clandestine to be collective and in broad daylight.” The description continued, “[The caravans] have become politicized and a symbol that humiliates and reminds the failure of the Central American governments…”
The invited speaker, Jacobo Garcia, is a veteran journalist who had reported from locations in Central and South America.
In other words, the academics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison believe that Central American illegal immigrants are similar to the Jews escaping Nazi Germany, which is confusing because Jews were being singled out by the Nazi German regime, while Central Americans are not being singled out by their respective governments. If the academics did their due diligence and homework, they would understand that many of the illegal immigrants were seeking a better life by living the American Dream, which is free-market opportunity. Some of the caravan participants were fleeing civil war or for safety reasons (i.e. gang or cartel warfare), but it is different than fleeing an anti-Semitic government as the Jews were.
Still, the university defended the event’s premise and said it is a part of creating an open-dialogue environment at the university.
