According to a 2021 report by Pew Research Center, about two-thirds of unauthorized immigrants and 83% of all unauthorized immigrants from Mexico had lived here for more than 10 years, as of 2017.

We, all of us, Democrats, Republicans, independents and others — all of us — let them in and we asked them to stay. We asked them to mow our lawns, to pick our crops, to work in our slaughterhouses, to clean our homes, to work in our restaurants, to clean our hotels, to work in our country clubs and to do so many other things that have benefited our society and our economy, including paying taxes and contributing to Social Security and Medicare.

We now deny our complicity in creating the problem and ignore these immigrants’ contributions to our society by condescendingly saying to them: “Get the f… out of our country!” This is wrong, selfish, immoral and, dare I say, unchristian.

We let them in, we suffered them to stay, we benefited from their labors. We need to treat them better than to simply say: “Get out!” Those who have lived here for so many years, who have married here, who have had children and grandchildren here, who have established homes and businesses here and who have given the sweat of their brows to benefit us, our country and our country’s economy should be treated better than this.

They should be given a path to permanent residency, and ultimately citizenship without first having to sacrifice everything they have built and contributed here. We are smart enough to do this without being unfair to others who have entered the country legally. To say we are not, is disingenuous and ignores our ability as a nation to solve difficult problems in a manner that is fair and just for everyone.