Desperation at the Southern US Border: Pro-life means protecting immigrant children

Opinion letter echo published in NJ.com (NewJersey.com)

I don’t know what high level of desperation causes a parent to send a minor child across our southern border, in hopes that their unaccompanied child will be admitted into our country and be allowed to stay.

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Maybe it’s like the desperation Jews in Europe felt when they sent their children, while they still could, anywhere to escape extermination by the Nazis.

Maybe it’s what Vietnamese parents felt when they tossed their children over the U.S. Embassy wall while Saigon fell, hoping their children would be on those helicopters that ferried away our evacuating government personnel.

Maybe it’s what Europeans felt when they put their teenagers on boats to cross the Atlantic, hoping they could make a life in America.
All of those parents anticipated they would never see their children again, but their children would be alive, something that was not guaranteed if they’d stayed put. I don’t know that desperation.

There are over 19,000 unaccompanied children, mostly Central American, currently being held at our southern border, fleeing violence, death and more. It’s not a good situation. But, they’re alive.

I don’t judge their parents. I don’t criticize President Joe Biden for allowing them into the United States. We can’t call ourselves a pro-life nation if we turn these children away.

From Ann M. Pompelio, in Sparta, New Jersey