Did you get the chance to watch or listen to or read the State of the Union address? I attended Mount Vernon High School’s All Sing Concert that night, so I didn’t get to hear it in real time, but I subsequently listened to it and read the transcript.
Like other years, there are many talking points and many issues raised. The part that really interested me was what President Biden had to say about the border and how it was received. It’s a sad day in America when we have a bipartisan group of Senators work together to create a bill that puts forward reform that is needed but then Representatives won’t pass it because they are pressured by Donald Trump.
The bill that Biden and the Senators put together would have had the toughest set of border security reforms we’ve ever seen, yet Trump and all of his acolytes are determined not to do anything to remedy the problems at the border that would include working with the other party and finding solutions together. Even so, they continue to complain about the problems they see and put blame on everyone else instead of looking for solutions that require reaching across the aisle.
We could have had a bill that, according to President Biden’s speech, would have included “hiring 1,500 more security agents and officers, 100 more immigration judges to help tackle the backload of 2 million cases, 4,300 more asylum officers, and new policies so they can resolve cases in six months instead of six years now.”
The bill would have also provided funding for “One hundred more high-tech drug detection machines to significantly increase the ability to screen and stop vehicles smuggling fentanyl into America that’s killing thousands of children. This bill would save lives and bring order to the border.”
Additionally, President Biden told us “It would also give me and any new president new emergency authority to temporarily shut down the border when the number of migrants at the border is overwhelming. The Border Patrol union has endorsed this bill. The federal Chamber of Commerce endorsed the bill.”
I loved that during this part of the speech he responded to all of the heckling he was receiving and reminded them that conservatives had gotten together to work on the bill and had declared it a good bill. He asked them to put politics aside and just look at the facts and read the bill. I am astounded that they are so swayed by someone who isn’t even in office anymore that they won’t even read the bill in front of them. This is how a dictatorship works, not a democracy.
Admittedly, we need to get our borders in order and immigration situation under control. But that doesn’t mean that we deny access to anyone who desires to come to America. Unless you are Native American, you have ancestors who immigrated to America and you are a beneficiary of the immigration process.
I have studied my family tree and my most recent immigrant is my great grandmother, Sarah Anne Broadbent Patterson. She left England at four years old in 1881 with her mother, Ambrosine. They were immigrating for religious reasons and leaving Sarah’s father behind. Ambrosine was seeking religious asylum to leave behind her husband who was trying to control what church she belonged to. They were coming to America for a new start.
I think of Sarah and Ambrosine often when I hear of the struggles at the border. Who am I to judge those that are there who have traveled so far to come to America? I don’t know what they are fleeing. I don’t know what their journey has been like to make it this far. Perhaps they have also left behind family members or have sold all that they had just to make it this far.
I do know that I feel very fortunate to live in the United States of America. This is a land that I love and I know that I need to take care of. It is my duty to be kind to those around me and not make life harder for them by my actions. It is also my duty to appreciate the opportunities I have in this country and not act like a 2-year-old in a sandbox and keep everything to myself.
Let us find a way to come together and work through these problems. We must stop looking only at differences. The bridge to common ground is only found by keeping our eye on the goal we all want and then building that bridge together. Let us show that we value this country that we live in by extending the opportunities that we enjoy to others.