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I am not following the news as well as I ought to be. In fact, I am more like the groundhog who freaks out at the sight of its shadow, and am more inclined to crawl back into my hole and pull it in after me. But it is hard to be ignorant these days. There is a quote by Martin Niemoller who didn’t speak out when they came for the socialists or union workers because he wasn’t a socialist or union worker. He didn’t speak out when they came for the Jews because he wasn’t a Jew either. At last the persecutors came for him and there was no one left to speak out for him.

Now that the government is arresting, detaining, shooting and killing the majority racial and socioeconomic groups, will we crawl out of our holes and move to action?

Will I have the moral courage to take those kinds of risks?

At the Tucson Quaker Meeting I heard about a young man who recently went camping at Organ Pipe National Park, which is located on the Arizona-Mexican border. The story goes that this young man (who happened to be Caucasian) was pulled over by Border Patrol and falsely accused of trafficking someone across the border. He was not allowed to call a lawyer and was taken to a detention center and held for the weekend. He was finally released at night, a hundred miles from his vehicle and belongings.

My visits to deliver food and do health assessments for migrant families give me pause. I am hearing stories like these all the time, although they are happening to brown people, many of whom are undocumented but some of whom are legal residents.

What ever happened to “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”? Oh Lady Liberty, we have let you down.