The protest at LAX today was reaffirming for me in the power of people coming together for positive change. I am glad for the friends who joined and all others who are working in their own way. It is something we have done before the current US elections and will continue to do long after, and it seems with more urgency. Perhaps the marginalization of so many by this administration will lead to stronger coalition building and efforts to make real change. We truly have no choice. This morning before joining in the protests, I put down some of the thoughts below. Every wave of immigration in the US has been opposed and yet immigration is what has made this country great, despite many serious challenges that are yet to be resolved. The topic of immigration has always been an easy way to prey upon the xenophobia, that fear of the unknown, the other, to placate the existing population, not by improving their lives, but by maintaining the status quo and creating a false sense of proactive action for their benefit.Today, people who have gone through the extremely difficult vetting process to obtain a visa or green card to be in the US, and gathered the very large sum of money it takes to fly here are being detained at the airport and even being sent back. Imagine that you, or someone you care about is coming here and upon arrival they are detained. Their names may be released now, thanks to the efforts of the ACLU and other lawyers around the country. At least now, we can know they exist and lawyers can fight for their rights, but this won't change without all of us. If you stop yourself from taking action now, who will take action for you when this precedent affects you directly?Many of the best minds and hardest working people from around the world have borne incredible hardship to come here to the United States, and despite racism, and politics that all too often tells them they don't belong, they have made this their home and done so much to contribute to society. One who is born into legal protections does not appreciate their value as much as those who have gone without and made that almost impossible struggle to leave behind everything, for the sake of a dream to have opportunities and basic protections.Those protections were not handed out. They were earned, through the struggle, lives and strength of all people who make this land their home. Social progress has always been held back by politics of division, a lack of desire to truly address the needs of the population, covered by pointing at marginalized communities as the enemy to pass legislation that ultimately will be used against those who quietly go along with it today.What has such and such community ever contributed to this country? Maybe it is up to us to look around and see those contributions, rather than demanding that every human being seen as other make the case for their right to exist. A lot of legislation is being pushed through without people having the opportunity to question or scrutinize. Yet there is a legal system in place for the moment. It still exists, but we need to support those protections and that process in the face of legislation that threatens to erase it while we sit and question the victims of injustice rather than the perpetrators of it.We still have the ability to make our voices heard. It requires that we inconvenience ourselves to show up and speak out against the reversal of hard fought social progress, on the lives of the many who died to push for the rights we take for granted today. Thanks to the sacrifices of so many, all we have to do is show up.