This week, President Obama's $3.7 billion request to deal with the border crisis stalled as lawmakers introduced a bill that purportedly aims to help young unaccompanied immigrants but actually just makes it easier to quickly deport them -- a measure Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, dismissed as "the deportation-only agenda dressed up in sheep's clothing." The crisis is certainly a chance to look in the mirror and decide what kind of nation we want to be: one that holds up "return to sender" signs and walks through towns with AR-15 rifles to protest the possible arrival of a few busloads of Central American children (as happened in Arizona and Michigan respectively), or one that decries "racist and xenophobic attitudes," as Pope Francis urged on Monday, and lives up to our founding principles as a nation of immigrants. Hanging in the balance isn't just which direction the children will go in, but the rest of us, as well.
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