Today will be one of the saddest days for the families and friends of the 10 victims of that raging house fire in the Bronx last week. Today comes the funerals and, for five victims, burial in a New Jersey cemetery. Others will be flown to Mali , one of the poorest countries in the world, for burial in family plots.
The public response has been heartwarming with people bringing everything from teddy bears to food to cash. But we have also been reminded that, in situations such as this, there will always be predators. By one account, a man in the neighborhood set up a container to raise money for the families, collected lots of it within a few minutes, then absconded. The City of New York, the State of New York and various civic associations have pledged to do all they can to help the surviving family members. The New York Yankees' principal owner, George Steinbrenner, has offered to cover the funeral costs. A real estate developer has offered, for free, to rebuild the gutted home on Woodycrest. Air France, for free, will fly the Malian funeral party to Mali. Politicians like U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano will try to ease immigration restrictions to permit family members, including a father of some of the children, to be able to travel to Mali for the burials and return to this country even though there are some "immigration papers issues" (You know, red tape?)
As I said in an earlier posting, the neighborhood Islamic center -- and site of the funerals -- is receiving donations. If you want to contribute, here's the information:
Magassa-Soumare Family Fund
c/o Islamic Cultural Center
371 E. 166th Street
Bronx, NY 10456
The telephone number you may call is 718-293-5323.
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3 comments:
If those paperwork issues mean that the father is here illegally, I'm surprised that the government is being so accommodating.
We are being asked to read between the lines, I suppose, both altruistically and politically. The children are Americans, whatever Dad's status. He's apparently been in the US for quite some time and, maybe, indeed, this is just a matter of finishing up the paperwork on something that is already underway. We'll see.
Although I know immigration is barely tangential to the topic... I think it's helpful for folks (like me, honestly) to associate real people, real faces, and real names with immigration issues and cases.
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