Mother and Child Separated

Joseph (Jose) wasn’t a carpenter, he was a bookkeeper.

And Mary (María) wasn’t a virgin, she conceived and gave birth in the normal way.

Their son Jesus (Jesús) is not the Son of God. Their family was sacred, but only in the way all families are sacred.

Their lives were put at risk when Joseph discovered rigged bids and money laundering at the Honduran branch of a Japanese construction firm where he worked.

After going missing for three days, he was found dead.

Mary decided she and her child had to flee. They made their way north through Mexico to the southern U.S. border.

“A shining city on a hill” is how Ronald Reagan described America. “If there had to be city walls,” he said during his farewell speech, “the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.”

But Jesus and Mary came to the America of Donald Trump. He had decided to repel legal asylum seekers by following through on his threats to take away their children. Mary and baby Jesus were caught in his crosshairs.

Asylum seekers don’t sneak unseen across the border. They risk dangerous journeys in order to petition U.S. immigration authorities under a rigorous judicial process defined by Congress. Their fates can go either way.

What Ronald Reagan understood — and the Donald Trumps don’t — is that our neighbors don’t come to harm us.

They pick our vegetables, clean our buildings, bathe our kids and pay taxes. Later they start businesses, run for office and serve in the military just as generations of refugees fleeing violence and persecution have done before them.