UW-Madison: Migrant Caravans and Jews Fleeing Nazi Germany

This University compared those in the migrant caravan to Jews fleeing Nazi Germany: https://t.co/HWmNSZCcY3 #TCOT #PJNET

— Campus Reform (@campusreform) March 6, 2019

From Campus Reform:

An event set to take place Tuesday at the University of Wisconsin, Madison discussing the current waves of immigration from Central America into the United States compares the situation on America’s southern border to the Holocaust.

The event’s description notes that the program “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, titled “The caravans, the phenomenon that changes the face of emigration” is being hosted by the Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program at UW-Madison.

...UW-Madison’s selected speaker for the event is Jacobo Garcia, a journalist with nearly 20 years of political reporting experience in South and Central America. The event at UW-Madison event is just one of many instances where colleges and professors have used the Holocaust while discussing modern-day political issues.

Students at the University of Arizona last fall were asked to compare the Trump Administration’s Muslim ban and anti-DACA policies to those presented in Nazi Germany. The extra credit assignment was presented to students in a class about the Holocaust.

...For its part, UW-Madison defended the event and its description, saying that it "invites speakers with a wide range of views to lecture on current events," noting that Garcia is an "internationally recognized commentator on war, natural disaster, and conflict, who will speak on the parallels between the Central American caravans and previous mass migrations during the Balkan War and Nazi-era Germany."

UW-Madison should invite a speaker to deliver a lecture on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.

Students might learn how inappropriate it is to compare the migrant caravans with Jews fleeing the death camps of Nazi Germany.