The United States of America is at its best when it is true to its commitments to be the land of welcome, hope, equality, prosperity and liberty.

As its declaration of Independence states:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed.”

And the touching and evocative message of the Sonnet on the base of the Statue of Liberty:

Cries she with silent lips.

“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!”

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