To flee from the land of your birth and set out for distant and foreign lands with little to no resources takes a tremendous amount of courage. However, the motivation for that type of journey, where the consequences could be extremely serious including death, would take more than just a courageous act, it would take desperate circumstances. The situation must be so dire that your only hope is to risk everything in order to save your life and the lives of your children. The biblical account of the Christmas Story and the birth of Jesus Christ have all of the circumstances listed above and more. Nevertheless, many people refuse to recognize that the circumstances are strangely similar to the migrants in the news today. It is the same story that thousands of migrant families are experiencing right now, fleeing to save their lives and the lives of their children. The difference is that instead of refuge and help, they have been blocked at the southern border of the United States by the current administration’s policies in direct opposition to international law and the foundational platitudes upon which America was built.
In fact, after previously ending policies that institutionalize kids in large and overcrowded orphanages as a standard practice due to the long-lasting and traumatic effects that practice inflicts upon children, our government is engaged in exactly the same practice today with no end in sight. According to the Associated Press (AP), the U.S. government has placed more than 14,000 migrant children in detention centers and residential facilities around the country. These kids are packed into what are basically prisons or internment camps not unlike those that imprisoned over 120,000 Japanese American men, women and children during World War II. They were American citizens who were not ever charged or convicted of any crime and yet, to our eternal shame, that is what we allowed to happen in the name of our Nation’s Freedom and Safety. Big Mistake! The only “crime” was that these fellow humans were of Japanese ancestry and we allowed our own FEAR and Misinformation to have them locked up by Presidential Order.
Shame on us if we continue to allow the humanitarian crisis going on right now at our southern borders and within our country to quietly continue without shining a bright light on the injustice of it all. It is an appalling situation and should be called out by the international community as a crime against humanity. As it has been said many times before, “Those who don’t KNOW their history are destined to repeat it.” And here we stand at the dawn of a brand New Year facing almost the EXACT same set of circumstances we have faced before and a chasm separates us as a nation.
However, this is not about political ideologies of Right or Left, Red or Blue. This is about Right and WRONG! Wake Up America! Wake Up those who believe in what the flag of the United States is supposed to stand for! Oh, and that statue that stands proudly in New York’s harbor, what is she supposed to do? Extinguish her torch and hang her head in shame? #FortheSakeoftheChildren We MUST Do Something!
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