Hard Times......

The caravan of immigrants from Central America has reached our southern border. They are knocking at the door.....and apparently no one is home. I don't mean that literally. It's just that fleeing your country because of war, or gangs, or bombs, or hunger.....or whatever, and coming to America doesn't seem to be such a good option any more.

Our Lady Liberty has proudly stood in New York's harbor greeting millions of immigrants since she first raised her torch.

                                       Give me your tired, your poor,
                                       Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
                                       The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
                                       Sent these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
                                       I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

I know we are not responsible for all of the world's problems. We may contribute to a lot of them.....but we also help where we can and try to solve some. But the image of people desperate for freedom, for a safe place for their families, for a chance to have a better life being turned away at our border is a hard one for me to process. Liberal old me.....granddaughter of immigrants me. We need immigration laws, we need border protection....but we need compassion. Please we need compassion. I hope people will still come....and that they can go through the necessary processes and add to this melting pot we call America.

I hope we will take them.....oh...but maybe not these people...

....or these

I can't imagine what it feels like to stand on one side of a fence and see and imagine the freedoms that wait just out of reach.....maybe the friendly-looking ones, or the educated ones will eventually get in and contribute to our society. But I wonder who we will have turned away....and what kind of difference they could have made.....I wonder what would have happened had my grandparents been sent back to Sweden. Probably wouldn't have happened....they looked nice, and white and they were from one of those Scandinavian countries.....