The world has multiple humanitarian crises at the moment. There is the fighting in Gaza (when is there not fighting in Gaza?), there is Syria, there is an Ebola outbreak, there is the Ukraine, etc. Then there are the Central American CHILDREN who have risked life and limb, left everything they know and everyone they love, to try to seek ASYLUM here. In our country.

Asylum is a big deal ya’ll, and the most important of these crises for us to address as quickly as possible. Once we develop a plan and solution to provide for these children then we can focus efforts on the next most pressing crises and work our way down the list. These are not divide-and-conquer situations, most of them are unite-and-improve situations.

With respect to the children refugees, I would suggest the solution is not sending them back to raping, pillaging, and drug violence because we don’t want to plant the seeds for a wave of retributive semi-domestic terrorism in twenty years. If we send them back, some of these kids will survive, become war-hardened and focus efforts on those that did them wrong. We don’t need to creat a bin laden-like guerrilla leader on our southern border.

Our entire country was founded and developed by people trying to get away from persecution or war in their homelands. We did really bad things to native peoples in our quest to get away from bad things and create a society that provided safety for refugees whether they’re white, black, brown, yellow, or whatever other shade human skin tones come in. We cannot have a national mid-life crises and say, “I don’t want to do it anymore.” This is our identity and we must continue to provide sanctuary to peoples of different stripes and creeds.

We need to find ways to provide these children refuge with good shelter, healthy food, appropriate clothing, competitive education, and due process of law. We need to bring them into the fold and make them part of us. They’re children. Really brave children. Don’t punish them because they’re only children and can’t yet fix them problems in their home countries. They need our help. And they need it now.