Given my work and some different ministries that I'm involved with as a part of our church I often have the chance to meet and interact with peoples from different walks of life and different parts of the world. I am always stuck by their stories. Stories of their previous lives in their countries, stories of their journey to our country, stories of the hardships they face here. 

The other day I had three interactions that impacted me and left me thinking and feeling for these people.

1) Imagine you are a medical doctor. You go through college, then med school, then a residency. You decide to choose a specialty, but you don't choose just any old specialty. You choose neuro-surgery. You become a neuro-surgeon in your home country. You are successful and great at what you do, but you also live in fear due to political reasons. You leave your country and come to a brand new place, where you have difficulty getting a job at Wal-Mart, much less even as an assistant in a hospital, even though you are fluent in English and extremely educated. You can't even imagine what it will take to put your career together again. It will involve more med school, exam, another residency, and that's just to be licensed as a doctor here. Who knows how long it will be until you are a respected neuro-surgeon again, if ever.

2) You live in a country where you are oppressed for political and religious freedoms. Your basic rights are denied and you live in constant fear. You decide to flee your country, taking refuge in a neighboring country that takes you in. You wait years for the right paperwork to be filed and processe and finally you arrive in the United States, seeking a new life. You don't speak a word of English. You trust that those around you are helping you and have your best interests in mind as they shuttle you to and from medical appointments, public assistance interviews, and social service organizations. You enroll in ESOL classes, only able to dream of one day understanding and speaking this language. At least you can sleep peacefully, possibly for the first time in years. 

3) Your husband is already in the States. It's been about 3 years since you've seen him. He tells you that there is nothing in your homeland and wants you to come join him. You say goodbye to two of your children who you leave with your mother and set off with your oldest child. You sneak across country borders and pay entirely too much for someone to guide you through the desert. At one point you turn back, cross the river and then cross again a few days later when it is safer. You barely eat for three days as you fight thorns, hunger and exhaustion. You walk for what seems an eternity. After you are done walking you still have 30 hours with 13 other people in a minivan. You don't come here because you are bored and want to try the American way of life. You come because you need to survive and the crops simply aren't yielding as they used to in your country. Finally you are reunited with your husband. You work crappy, smelly, low paying jobs, bordering on slave labor. Jobs that no one born here would ever dream of doing, but it is money. Money you can send home to your family. Money that will put food in your children's mouths.

Regardless of your opinions on immigration, one fact remains true. These are real people with real stories coming here in search of something better. Many come legally, crossing their Ts and dotting their Is, painstakingly following the endless process. Others don't have that luxury. They need to eat. They have families to feed. It could take years to come legally, or it might simply be impossible. They come and do jobs that none of us here would dream of doing. Do you want to slaughter chickens for 12 hrs a day, walking around in a mix of blood and chicken skin? Do you want to spend 16 hrs in the fields picking strawberries until your fingers bleed and your back aches? 

Let's remember that people are what really is at stake. Where is Lady Liberty with her open arms asking for the poor and downtrodden? They are still running to her, but she is pushing them away. Let's find a way to open those arms again.