America!  It is still the land of opportunity, a place of refuge for people from all over the world.  We are currently being bombarded with refugees from Russia as well as from Mexico.  We should feel honored.  This country’s famous quote says   give us   your   tired, your poor and we welcome you here.  We should not disappoint a new crop of immigrants that need us now.  People from these countries are so desperate for  freedom and for a better life that parents are willing to give up their young children and break up families if they have to in order to save their lives.

Right now the challenge in Russia is to be gay.  Life has become more difficult and not easier for young gay men.  They are under attack and seem to be forced to leave their homeland.  There was a club in downtown Moscow called Central Station where you used to be able to see entertainment performed by drag Queens.  For years it used to be a meeting place for gay people to hook up.  Now they feel like outcasts in their own homeland being forced to flee their country.  To be young, gay and Russian must be whispered and a secret there for your   own physical safety.  The club has been closed and destroyed.

Gay people are currently being beaten   and tortured in that country not by other   citizens but by the local police.  All the violence is because of a controversial law that was passed in Russia last June that bans so callled, ”  of propaganda of non- traditional relationships to minors.” Human rights activists say it is really just a crackdown on gay rights.  The result is a more intense antigay climate in Russia.  There were more than 20 attacks on gay clubs. Bullet holes in the doors and   anyone who looks gay is beaten in the streets by the police.  The police are in vans called the Morality Patrol looking for young gay men.

The assaults had become too much for men who just want to dance dressed up like women and make love to other men.  They are not equipped to fight back so they are leaving their families and   moving to San Francisco for a better and free life.  They say it is the gay capital of the United States.  They come here for freedom of expression and freedom to love others. People don’t want much they just want to live a peaceful free life and are the wishes of the families of children being offered to us at Mexico’s border. People do not want to be with corrupt governments in Russia or Mexico.

No one here in America seams to even know about the gay Russian invasion because they are focused on the 52,000 Mexican kids sitting on the border wanting to start a new life in America.  It has to be a sad sight for parents to be so desperate to part ways with their own flesh and blood.  Throughout the last 30 years, the drug business has ruined   Mexico to the point that parents don’t have the resources to even take care of their own children.  There   has been a breakdown in authority in the governments of three Central American countries. These kid are coming from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala that is twice as dangerous as Iraq was at the height of the Iraqi War.  In desperation   you would rush your child to a safe border too.

These children are basically refugees.  The definition of a refugee is a person who is fleeing a horrific situation in their own country.  85% of these children have relatives in America that they can live with.  These children are not lawless violent   criminals but are young human beings seeking to avoid a lawless violent future.  It is a traumatic situation for all.

 Should we   guard our borders? Yes,   but we should also find a humane solution to the violent places that seem to be escalating all over the globe these days.  If we can’t stop the lawlessness and discrimination then at   least invest in humility and reasoning to help people find their way again in life.  America is a country built from immigrants and we need to help the newest generation of tired, hungry and poor to lift themselves up in happiness on some soil.