It’s seems more appropriate and necessary now to define for ourselves and posterity the country we want to live in.

In a recent article written about Stephen Miller, his leadership on the Right, and attitudes / efforts to reshape our country, the article recalled his declaration,

“If you import the Third World, you become the Third World,” which Stephen Miller said during the 2024 US Presidential Campaign.

Miller is one of the chief architect and executor of the Trump Administration’s restrictive immigration and mass deportation policies.

Let me be clear. In my opinion, those policies are not America, and they are not OK.

America is a country founded on many things, and not all good. Above all else it was established and stands for Freedom, Equality, Opportunity, and Justice.

As was said at the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty more than one hundred years ago,

This statue (and be extension America” is a stream of light shall pierce the darkness of ignorance and man’s oppression until Liberty enlightens the world.”

And the words of poet Emma Lazarus ring true from that time too, soon after inscribed on a plaque near the base of Lady Liberty,

“”Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”–Emma Lazarus (1883).

The America I believe in is forever a nation of immigrants, forever evolving according to those forever core values.

I find solace and inspiration too in an article recently written about Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

At the inauguration of Donald Trump nearly one year ago, she wore a necklace of cowrie shells, as reported by Michele Norris, “Cowrie shells symbolize resilience, femininity and protection from evil in some African cultures.”

And later Jackson herself wrote,

“It should be said that the simple act of recognizing history more than eight months into an administration, when we are in a period of willful and aggressive erasure, is an act of both courage and grace. It is also a demonstration that fashion is not always frivolous. It can be a vehicle for agency, legacy and history. It can hold a mirror up to society and spark dialogue, curiosity and introspection.”

Let us embrace rather than divide, let us go forward together with those committed to our common values:

Freedom, Equality, Opportunity, and Justice.