And Jesus said, "Drink from the toilet, and it shall be good."

Sorry if you're reading this while eating your Cheerios, but I'm angry and depressed and I hope I can make you angry and depressed.

There's been talking points on both sides of the political spectrum about the immigration crises, but no productive action has been taken, and we need action.

Immigration is a complicated thing and I'm not going to pretend to have any answers. But I know what we are currently doing with immigrants is not the right thing to do.

We've all heard the stories of families being separated. The ACLU says at one point, over 2000 families were separated. We've heard about immigrants being forced to drink toilet water. Or maybe you've heard of the rampant sexual abuse to children in these detention centers. 

Trump has made it clear, he hates immigrants from what he deems "shit hole countries." And even though Pence hasn't been as outspoken, look at how he views these men in a detention facility. There's no recognition that they are human. There's almost a disdain as he refuses to meet the eyes of anyone in the facility.

This image will go down in history. New video shows shows Mike Pence callously observing and turning his back on severe overcrowding of men in cages at a detainment facility in Texas.

pic.twitter.com/ij5Zlt5neV

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) July 13, 2019

I hear time and time again, "Well, they broke the law. They came here illegally. They need to be punished."

That's only partially true, but whatever helps you sleep at night.

Climate change is real whether you want to admit it now or when Miami is partially underwater. Countries along the equator are finding their economies suffering. People are going to keep moving away from these areas to extreme north and south, which is going to make this immigration problem worst.

The Trump administration says there's a crises, and they are right. But the crisis isn't MS-13 members like certain Fox News host would lead you to believe. They are largely women and children making credible claims of asylum. Essentially they are fleeing violence and asking for the US to help them.

Why is there so much violence in their home countries? Well, they are mostly poorer nations, and the poorer your nation, the most likely your infrastructure is weak, and the more likely people will rise up through violence in order to live a better life.

So while we sit here screaming into the void that is Twitter, there are people actually trapped in wars in their home countries.

This is especially bad for women and children. Sexual assault and domestic abuse run rampant. Women and children huddle in train stations together hoping to escape violence by numbers. And if a woman is raped in say Honduras, and ends up pregnant, she faces the decision of prison time for getting an abortion or possibly death if she gives birth in one of the highest mortality rates for birth in the world.

And as much as I would love to turn my empathetic heart off and say, "Well, it's not my problem, their country should get it together," when you start reading into it you find the US usually played some role in the current situation in their country.

Say like the US backed Coup in Honduras that caused severe destabilization. Or the US backed dictator in Guatemala that sent the country into a decades long civil war. Or the US seizure of oil profits in Venezuela and then severe sanctions when someone tried to take them back.

We're the bad guys. Almost everyone of the Central and South American countries with representatives in these migrant caravans has a history of poverty and violence usually caused by or at least pushed by the US. This is why when people get "rah rah, best country on the planet," I cannot agree.

We have an obligation to help these people, not herd them into cages, make them drink toilet water. These people aren't coming to steal our jobs or join gangs. These people are looking for a safe place. A place where their children can have a better future.

People don't migrate with a real risk of death because they want to work in the kitchen of your favorite Italian place or clean up your bathrooms.


Trump and Pence have announced more raids are coming tomorrow (Sunday). There will likely be people in church with their families and as they walk out, ICE agents will snatch the fathers. Best case scenario is the father is deported, worst case is the family is permanently separated or die in the custody of boarder agents. 

It makes me sick to my stomach.