The Long and Winding Road

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/05/11/us/title-42-immigration

("End of Pandemic-Era Policy Casts Uncertainty Over U.S. Border")

What circumstance would cause you to walk hundreds or even thousands of miles, sometimes over forbidding terrain, all your worldly possessions fitting in a backpack, your loved ones either left to worry and wonder or, if they are able, there beside you, maybe a small child or a baby in tow?

This is not an adventure, not a journey on the Appalachian Trail, not done as a test of endurance or so you can publish a tale of your travels, but as a declaration of the hopelessness that has engulfed your existence. 

You would not be seeking riches, for even in your wildest dreams what is waiting for you at the end of the road is not a rainbow of open arms and pots of gold but only a sliver of possibility. Clinging to a belief that desperation does not have to be your permanent condition.

As these migrants come by the thousands today, wondering if their path to asylum is now but a little less treacherous, asking only for a single ray of sunlight, we should not consider them as our enemy. 

If it were you standing there today, weary and worn, what would you ask of those who stood guard over your future?