By JIM McKEEVER I spent the last two weeks of May at the US-Mexico border in Texas, volunteering with the humanitarian organization Team Brownsville, welcoming asylum seekers. In those two weeks, we welcomed hundreds of men, women and children, providing food, clothing, hygiene supplies and occasional assistance with transportation to other cities. The need is …
By JIM McKEEVER The blue and yellow flags of Ukraine that flew so proudly in our communities last year have faded. Many have disappeared from front porches, yards and windows. I guess we’re tired of reading and hearing about the war, more than a year after Vladimir Putin invaded the sovereign nation next door. (Perhaps …
By JIM McKEEVER If you had the opportunity to provide comfort to a child, or a family, sleeping outside in the cold, you’d do whatever you could, right? It’s what any decent human being would do. Not the United States Border Patrol. Here’s what’s been happening for weeks now at the US-Mexico border in Friendship …
By JIM McKEEVER I heard many stories during a recent “water drop” in the desert with Border Kindness, a not-for-profit humanitarian aid organization in southern California. One in particular told by a fellow volunteer will stay with me. The story marked the beginning of the 34-year-old man’s transformation a quarter-century ago. As a young boy …
By JIM McKEEVER Mexicans can be heroes again. A U.S. District Court judge last week overturned a 2021 U.S. Customs and Border Protection policy that had stopped Mexicans from crossing the border to donate plasma. In May 2021, I noticed long lines outside the three plasma donation centers within a few hundred yards of the …
By JIM McKEEVER For the past few months — has it been longer? — I’ve half-jokingly said that we should change the name of this website to “Sense of Despair.” It pretty much sums up where many of us have been lately, whether it’s the pandemic that won’t go away, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, lies …
By JIM McKEEVER We are heartbroken. News reports, photos and video of the suffering in Ukraine, images of innocent families dead on the ground, have infuriated us, sparked us to act. We send money, food, supplies, weapons. We attend rallies to show solidarity with Ukraine and speak out against Vladimir Putin’s cruel war. America’s empathy …
By JIM McKEEVER I won’t give you their names, but names shouldn’t matter anyway. They are voices at the other end of a phone call, faceless men ages 18 to 48, who tell me their stories in 60, 90 minutes. We say good-bye, I wish them luck and I have no idea what happens to …
By JIM McKEEVER The Facebook message from Julie at Minority Humanitarian Foundation arrived on a Wednesday afternoon. “Hi Jim and Nina would you be available/interested in driving to Calexico tomorrow to pick up an asylum seeker? His wife just called us and he is being released today. … we were wondering if you could pick …
By DENNIS HARROD A word has ignited a war of words on the letters to the editor page in The Sherburne News, a weekly newspaper in the next county over from where I live. The word that started the war begins with “F” and ends with “K.” It appears in very large letters on the …
Sense of Decency 