The Border Crisis

The Border Crisis

The situation at our southern borders is turning into a humanitarian crisis.  Children are streaming to our border seeking compassion after brutal treatment in their home country.  We should be assisting these kids as much as possible as we seek a more permanent solution to the problem.  What, exactly, is this problem?  The original countries that these children came from are in turmoil with little prospect of a peaceful future.  The risk of staying in their home countries is greater than traveling across unknown territory to the U.S.  The reasons are many and will need to be addressed in many areas over a period of time.

Here are some suggestions for improving the situation:

1.  Find places for these children to stay temporarily until long-term solutions can be worked out.  If the kids are to be shipped back to their country of origin quickly, then the laws of the U.S. will need to be modified since there are current provisions to provide legal safeguards protecting those who are fleeing certain situations.

2.  Eventually, we will need to deal with all who are here illegally.  Supposedly, we dealt with this in the 1980’s but things have fallen through and we now need to deal with it again.  Compassion and respect for the rule of law need to be balanced in the proposed solution.

            3.   Hopefully, the different factions of our split government can agree on some common ground in this mess.  Compromises need to be proposed and accepted by all parties involved.  There should be middle ground where acceptable solutions can be found.

              4.   Solutions should also include assistance to the countries of origin.  If the economic, safety, and cultural situations in the original countries are addressed and improved, there will be less incentive for people, adults and children alike, to brave the difficult journey in search of a better life.  This holds for the rest of the world as well.

       5.This problem did not surface overnight.  It was not caused by any one party, all concerned citizens and leaders have been involved with this for some time.  It will take effort and time to approach this multi-layered situation with compassion and problem-solving techniques for the highest quality solutions.  May the force be with us.