America, we got to get back to doing what's expected of us as free citizens in this democracy.

That means being tolerant, being respectful, staying informed, and being engaged.

I'm former Congressman Joe Walsh. Follow me here and join the millions of Americans who are renewing their social contract with each other.

The social contract, it's on us.

It's hard to say, but I will go ahead and say it.

Of all the openly cruel things,

this administration's been doing the past year.

Of all the utterly cruel things that the Trump administration has been doing to immigrants in this country this past year,

this may be the most cruel.

The cruelty in this stands out. That's hard to say, right? Because we live in, I was going to say,

we live in a country. No, we live in an America where for the past year

brown and black people disappeared off of our streets thrown into unmarked vans masked

federal agents grabbing 80 82 year old grandmothers who've been in this country for 30

years, grabbing day laborers out of Home Depot parking lots, grabbing pregnant mothers out of

courtrooms. We live in a country right now. We live in an America right now where people are being denied even entry into here

based on their speech, based on their opinions. We live in an America right now where the

President of the United States just about a week, week and a half ago said, if you're brown or

black, we don't want you in here. If you're brown or black, we want you out of here.

If you're from Afghanistan, don't even think about coming here.

If you're from these 19 other countries where brown and black immigrants come from,

don't even think about coming here.

On and on and on and on, it goes.

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