Politicians seeking political advantage blame the Central American children crisis on President Barack Obama. They demand that the border be secured. But these children aren’t undocumented immigrants trying to sneak into America. They are refugees fleeing threats on their lives, and hoping to reach our border security guards, not avoid them. They aren’t running to America; they are running from homes where their lives are under threat. Protestors aren’t trying to help border security round them up; they are blocking buses from reaching border security.
We have a broken immigration system. Comprehensive reform has been blocked, largely by the same politicians now condemning President Obama. But the challenge posed by 50,000 children from Central America isn’t about a broken immigration system or a porous border. It is about children fleeing a violent land seeking refuge in a storm.
America, famously, is a land of immigrants. Waves of immigrants — some coming voluntarily, some brought against their will — built this country. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” reads the Statute of Liberty, a monument to that reality. But these children are not immigrants. They are not seeking jobs. They are refugees seeking safety.
