I belong to a group of people who actively seek a world that works for every person. Within the adoption related communities, I promote family preservation. At one point, our federal government tore families apart. I believe some of those children have been returned and some remain lost in a system that has likely allowed them to be adopted.

I grew up on the border in El Paso Texas. A friend of mine who still lives there wrote to me today these words – “This is an invasion. No telling whom is crossing. A bit frightening. I have not been frightened until about a week ago.” I happen to know that she is on the more conservative side of Republican perspectives. I can’t judge what she is experiencing there. When I was younger, I had several adventures in Mexico and some misadventures that still turned out with me returning safely to the United States. I always knew that our American legal system was preferable to what I might encounter with the Federales in Mexico.

I do know that as the misdeeds of our former president become ever more obvious, his side of the partisan divide loves to use immigration issues to distract from the factual inconvenient truth. Realistically, I do know the the US can’t take in every person who wants to come here. We do have a shortage of the kind of labor pool who is willing to do a lot of the work that migrants are willing to do. Our social security system could use the increase in tax revenues to support today’s and tomorrow’s beneficiaries. I do know that immigrants (my biological, genetic grandfather was one) make a net positive contribution to our country economically.

What I think has changed is technological. Inexpensive “smart” phones and social media drive, I believe, the global increase in desperate migrations, whether from the global south to the United States or from Africa and the Middle East to Europe. The news spreads and who can, with any heart or compassion, deny the desires of people seeking a better life ? I believe most to these people who embark on dangerous journeys in the hopes of better circumstances would prefer to remain in the countries of their birth if the danger and wealth inequality were alleviated.

In less than a week, we celebrated the idea that a baby born in the most humble of circumstances could mature into a man who changed the hearts of multitudes. That is the real truth of Christmas regardless of whether the story actually occurred or not.