Etched on the steps of Lady Liberty are the following words:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

For centuries, America — the so-called land of immigrants — has held open arms to the huddled masses of the tired, the poor and those yearning for opportunity. Yet in an era of walls and cages, immigration has turned into a partisan renegade: a political conversation rife with hot takes. 

We are first generation legal immigrants — a label that seems to characterize and dictate our lives more than we’d like it to — and the grave realities of America’s immigration policies hit a little too close to home. 

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