Dear Donald Trump,
You are definitely not my President, because you single-handedly just broke hearts, separated families indefinitely, shattered spirits, and undermined the values that truly once made America great. Those values of inclusivity, hospitality, and humanitarianism are omitted from this action. I spent yesterday in my refugee clinic, counseling survivors of human rights abuses from Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. This is the work I have done for twenty years.
The sense of relative safety that refugees arriving to the community of the United States have always felt is now shattered. The place we, as a nation, once held in the world—of sanctuary, of acceptance, of pragmatic humanitarian compassion and action, of equality and liberty for all—is eroded.
I would love to know what you suggest I tell the woman I counseled yesterday; who was tortured and raped by Isis in two different countries, and who had to flee with her two young children, to save her own life, and leave her husband and one child behind? She has been waiting to re-unify with her beloved family; she needs her husbands support to raise their children because she suffers from her history of exposure to war, violence, and abuse. She is only one of the many survivors of gross human rights violations I counsel. Is he going to be able to join his family? Who is supposed to tend to her children when she has to go to work, and make minimum wage, to support them? I invite you to sit with my my clients and listen to them. I invite you to answer their questions. I invite you to represent humanity, and not fear.
This action is shamefully un-American, and so are you.