Thoughts on Father's Day: Keep families together

This year on Father’s Day, I am thinking of my own father’s journey to parenthood, which included fleeing persecution in Nazi Germany. He and my mother were among the lucky refugees who immigrated to the United States to pursue the American dream and raise a family in the land of the free.

When I look at the families on our border, who are also fleeing persecution, I can’t help but remember my own family. It’s not a crime to seek asylum. That’s how generations of Americans got here. That’s what my parents did.

Every parent knows what it’s like to do everything in their power to make their children feel safe and secure. All the refugees are asking for is chance to live without suffering and fear of being terrorized in their home countries. Just like my parents.

After all the hardship and adversity the refugees at our borders have endured just to get to the “promised land,” it is an affront to their humanity to endure the agony of losing their children when they get here.

The Trump administration has chosen to implement an intentionally cruel policy that separates children and babies from their parents and warehouse them in appalling conditions - and now it's our time to make a choice: stand up and defend what has made our country great or allow an atrocity to become normalized.

That's why I am co-sponsoring the Keep Families Together Act. We have got to put a stop to the barbaric practice of separating children, toddlers, and even infants from their parents.

The outrageous actions of the Trump Administration remind me how thankful I am to my father, and to all the fathers who wake up thinking of making a better way of life for their children, and go to sleep doing the same.

For them, and so many others, we will make our choice to do what's right.

Ron