"More than 76,000 migrants crossed the US–Mexico border without authorization in February, according to US Customs and Border Protection, more than double the number encountered last February...Researchers and advocates believe the increase in migrant families in remote areas of the border is fueled by the US limiting how many asylum-seekers it can process daily." [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/]

"For the first time ever, an incredible 61 percent of all migrants apprehended by Border Patrol at the U.S.-Mexico border are children, and parents with children. This proportion was never as high as 10 percent before 2012." [https://www.wola.org/]

Meanwhile, "President Trump’s purge of the nation’s top homeland security officials is a sign that he is preparing to unleash an even fiercer assault on immigration, including a possible return of his controversial decision last summer to separate migrant children from their parents..." [https://www.nytimes.com/]

Tonight, in our own small way, we chose to make a Latin American-style meal to acknowledge a modern Exodus story. While we re-tell the Biblical plight of the Jewish people tonight, think about those who are, at this very moment, fleeing, without food, in their own desert as we sit around this table free.


haggadah Section: Introduction