Christy Fujio, director of PHR’s Asylum Program, responds to a Boston Globe article on a computer game that cruelly mocks a vulnerable population that faces extortion, theft, rape, murder, torture, assault, and other dangers as it crosses the border. In the game, Smuggle Truck: Operation Immigration, a “battered-looking pickup truck careens over a Southwestern United States landscape, with cartoon men, women, and children bouncing out of the back. As the passengers land on the ground, the truck moves on, belching thick exhaust.”
“Women, children, torture survivors, and other asylum seekers are among those who cross into this country every day, and many of them have valid claims to residency in the United States. Having escaped from persecution, war, natural disasters, and other humanitarian crises, many people have no other option but to seek residency here. The alternative for them is frequently death,” writes Fujio.
You can read the full letter to the editor here.