A Nation Built on Freedom Should not Imprison Those Who Seek it

   They run for freedom, and, for it, are rewarded by being tossed in jail.
   I read today's news story, quoting a 7-year-old girl in an immigrant detention center as asking, "If we are running away from evil in our country, why is it that (when) we get here, we are in this jail?"
   Wisdom from a child, who can see what many adults cannot.
   I think how America should perhaps quit thinking of itself as the world's champion of liberty. If we punish people for seeking refuge from oppression, what kind of country are we? If we place children in jails where the water is so poor they get sick, what kind of people are we?
   Why would we do this thing? We are a noble people, or should be. We are better than this. How have we sunk to this point? Is it that we don't look long enough to see what we are doing? Are we so blind it takes a 7-year-old to point out that what we are doing is wrong?
   Perhaps we could differentiate between a refugee camp and a refugee prison. A camp is a place where you care for the needs of the immigrant, a place where services are provided without freedom being taken away. Our very attitude toward these people dictates that ours will not be refugee camps, but rather they will be prisons, for we believe these people are not worthy of freedom so long as they remain on our soil. We believe they belong in holding jails until we can force them to return to their homelands. Ours are not refugee camps, not in the nature of being places of refuge. Our are prisons. Properly stated, perhaps, we should call them immigrant jails.
   It should not be so. A nation that champions freedom should offer it. A nation built on the principle of freedom should not be punishing those who seek it. A nation of freedom should not imprison those who flee from the hands of evil. The crime lords in such places as Mexico and Guatemala often rule as much as the governments. To suppose that people there are not fleeing for freedom because their governments are free is an inaccuracy. As a nation born of freedom, and founded on it, let us not reject those who are seeking it in our day.
   And, let us cease imprisoning them.