Even now, out of desperation, they board flimsy rafts, or pay their life savings to be smuggled into our country. Many people here in the US become very angry at these "illegal aliens'", but we must realize why they are doing this. It is because their own country's conditions are nothing like our own.

They want to be free.

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world wide-welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
" 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-post to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door !

by Emma Lazarus, New York City, 1883

"There are those who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is the American Dream."- Archibald MacLeish

"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."-Daniel Webster

It is time for us to realize how lucky we are to live in the country that we do, to recognize the freedoms that we take for granted, and to remind ourselves of those who traveled across the sea to seek to share in our freedoms.

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