“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” - Emma Lazarus
Words once with so much meaning not too long ago, serving as a calling for our ancestors to establish roots in this land, so that they were no longer persecuted for their beliefs, to escape intolerant governments, be welcomed to unfathomable opportunity and exist within a society that had a sense of freedom. My, how times have changed... Lady Liberty has lost her significance.
These words will never roll off the tongues of many of today's leaders in this politically charged climate. Sensationalized worry is drummed up about such asinine things… people jumping the border, building walls to block “invasive” immigrants, making up terms for people who by law are currently American citizens. Meanwhile, literal boatloads of men, women and children try to escape the devastation happening in Syria and the European Union plays off of the current American spectrum on immigration. “Not in my land!” they say. Trucks full of people dying parked on the roadside, boatloads of people drowning trying to simply escape evil. Seeing the story of the little boy who had drown off the shores of Turkey, trying to escape the reality many families in that region face and the reluctance of the EU to act, really touched a nerve in me. I am unable to sit silent anymore.
Sure there may need to be policy changes made to make sure immigration does not collapse economies or disrupt communities and allowances for better transitions for foreign people to this land. But simply put, think with you heart and be woeful of the visceral tongues of those who lead. If you were faced with the decision to pick up everything you own and leave for a better life with your family, would you make that extremely difficult choice? We as a country cannot simply shut the door on people who are looking for a better life. Do not forget, many of us all come from our ancestor’s migration to this land who once sought those same virtues of today immigrant and refugee.
