Our Pledge of Allegiance, which many school children recite daily, calls for loyalty to our country “with liberty and justice for all.” But, what do we really mean by these words? What about the high school graduates who have recited this pledge for most of their lives but were not born in the United States?
Is it “justice” to send a young person to a country they might not know? A country where the dominant language might be one they can’t speak? To leave their family and friends and the future they had imagined for themselves? That definitely is not “liberty.”
So are they not part of our “all”?
The approximately three million young people often referred to as the “Dreamers” need a pathway to citizenship. And we need Congress to act on this. We should not be subjecting these young people to new fears each time a new president is elected.
My hope is that my representative, Chris Stewart, will work with Sens. Lee and Romney to support legislation that affirms our Pledge of Allegiance by providing a pathway to citizenship for all those young people who came here as children and who know the United States as their home.
Deb Sawyer, Salt Lake City