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\u201cBefore I built a wall I\u2019d ask to know When do we start to care? What is the threshold of our concern? Gordon Brown was once Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, a country with its own blood splattered history of abusing asylum seekers, especially children. Last week, in response to the U.S. bombing of Shajareh Tayyebeh school, the slaughter of 168 schoolgirls, Gordon Brown wrote<\/a>, \u201cThe killing of a reported 168 people, primarily schoolgirls, in the\u00a0bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh school<\/a>\u00a0in Minab in Iran has shaken to its very core the conscience of the world \u2026.No child should ever become collateral damage in a conflict.\u201d Brown then goes on to call for \u201cthe creation of a dedicated international criminal court for crimes against children<\/a>\u201d. As Gordon notes, this event is not isolated. Children are killed, assaulted, destroyed, broken from Gaza and the West Bank to Lebanon to Iran \u2026 and beyond. Gordon notes, \u201cWe cannot afford to stand by as yet another established international law governing the conduct of war is broken, apparently with impunity.\u201d Something is broken \u2026 something in us. And it\u2019s not only in \u201cforeign lands\u201d. It\u2019s down the street, around the corner. Ask the five children of the El Gamal family, who have been detained in Dilley since June 2025. They wrote letters which were presented to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary on Wednesday.<\/p>\n The children are Habiba El-Gamal, 18; a sixteen-year old son; a nine-year-old daughter; and five-year-old twins, one boy one girl.<\/p>\n This is the beginning of Habiba El Gamal\u2019s letter: \u201cMy name is Habiba Soliman. I\u2019m eighteen years old and I have been detained in Dilley, Texas since June 2025 with my family. Every morning we wake up wondering how much more of this we can take because nine months has felt like an eternity.\u201d Habiba graduated high school in May. She \u201cwas chosen as one of the `best and brightest\u2019 students in the state and was recognized by a picture with the mayor with a scholarship from the Colorado Springs Gazette. She wants to be a doctor and dreams of Harvard medical school.\u201d She stills dream of Harvard \u2026 and she dreams of freedom: \u201c\u201cWe forgot what it feels like to be free. We miss what it feels like to wake up in our own beds with our phones next to us. We dream about how we want our first meal together as a family to be pizza and then cake. We dream of a time when each one of us will be in school and will be able to work on his future. We dream of a normal life where we still are able to make a difference in the world.\u201d We dream we dream we dream \u2026 But, Habiba adds, \u201cthis place broke something in us. Something that I don\u2019t know if we will ever be able to fix.\u201d<\/p>\n No child should ever become collateral damage. This place broke something in us. Something that I don\u2019t know if we will ever be able to fix.<\/p>\n (By Dan Moshenberg)<\/p>\n
\nWhat I was walling in or walling out,
\nAnd to whom I was like to give offense.
\nSomething there is that doesn’t love a wall,
\nThat wants it down.\u201d
\nRobert Frost, Mending Wall<\/a><\/p>\n