Walls

Sheila Kennedy wrote about the “wall” this morning, sharing this poem by Robert Frost.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.

She goes on to say, “It might not keep determined immigrants out, but it would be a powerful symbol of America’s retreat–not just from much of the rest of the world, but from who we are. It would symbolize rejection of values we may not always have lived up to, but have persistently worked toward. It would be a lasting symbol of small-mindedness, of fearfulness.  It would send the world a signal that the high-minded experiment that was the United States had ignominiously failed.”

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is participating with others  across the country for a week of action as we stand in solidarity with the migrant caravan and all who seek refuge in the U.S. Together, we are calling on the U.S. to respect the human right to migrate, end the militarization of border communities, and end the detention and deportation of immigrants, calling this week a “moral call for migrant justice.”

Our “Love Knows No Borders” week of action begins on Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day, and ends on Dec. 18, International Migrants’ Day.

This video is from the action at the border Monday, when thirty people were arrested in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience, among them my friend (and Quaker who works at the AFSC) Lucy Duncan.

Today the American Friends Service Committee will be participating in this moral call for migrant justice by meeting at 4:00 pm at the Des Moines offices of our Senators, Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, 733 Federal Building, 210 Walnut Street.

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