1. United States
2. N.J.
3. Letter

The United States of America has a serious optics issue. Renowned for its intent to create a melting pot for the disenfranchised, our beacon Lady Liberty states give us your unwanted souls, for goodness sake. But when they come, they find their existence completely at the mercy of a Congress that looks nothing like them and has experienced nothing similar to them. Congress has become a haven for old, upper middle class white Christian men with a biased sense of morality, and an outdated vision of what America should look like. We cannot be a melting pot with closed borders. We cannot be a safe haven with concentration camps. We cannot make space for the American Dream when we don’t make space for the dreamers. We cannot heal the sick with inaccessible and unaffordable healthcare. We cannot be pro-life and have interminable and unmitigated mass shootings, a death penalty, and a complete disregard for women who find themselves trapped in zero exception pregnancy complications. We cannot have freedom of speech while suppressing the media. We cannot have peace while waging vanity wars. Our president rages against human rights violations in Iran while imposing human rights violations on his own people. This is not the land of the free. But it could be- if YOU become brave.