People are people

Undocumented people are not animals. They’re not “illegals”. They are individual human beings moving to find a safe place to live and raise a family and work and build community, most often because they have no choice if they want to protect themselves and their children and have opportunities to thrive and succeed. If there is no legal path for a desperate person to go through, they will flee in whatever other way they can, the same as any other parent around the world. You would do the same.

All people are created equal and have the same human rights. Religions tell us that. Morality and decency tell us that. Even our U.S. Constitution specifies all people, not all Americans. We are all family, whatever imaginary lines in the earth we happened to have been born in.

Saying that we shouldn’t call members of the undocumented population (or any human beings) “animals” is not a defense of MS13. It’s a defense of humanity.