“Those kids had no business leaving home in the first place.”

A recent Washington Post article, covered how the town of Worthington Minnesota has become the epicenter of a debate raging across America. The 13,000 person town of Worthington, has accepted more unaccompanied minors per capita than all but one city in the United States, according to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. While most of the kids who are settled in Worthington just want to go to school and hopefully live a better life. Their mere presence has divided the town. The division comes down to how to fund the critically overcrowded schools.

 While the issues of immigration, and unaccompanied children at the border are national issues. The debate was localized, in the last 5 years, the school board and advocates have tried to get a tax measure passed to further fund the schools. For 5 consecutive years, 5 different variations of the tax measure have failed to pass. The driving force behind their failures seem to be a group of white farmers, and many "old" residents of Worthington. Who feel it is not their responsibility to "pay for illegals." The result of the measures failing to pass is that children are being taught in former maintenance sheds, while neighbors boycott each others businesses over their stance on the measure. The divide is so severe that when a local priest praised immigrants, he was booed from the pews and later received death threats.

It all points to a deeper divide in this country, that goes passed the immigration status of LatinX or any immigrants of color. That for a long time progressives have preached that ignorance, lack of exposure other cultures was behind conservative xenophobia. However this story serves as a notice, that exposure, does not always lead to a better understanding or acceptance. Which will hopefully force conservatives and progressives to further examine the root cause of the intense disdain immigrants face all over this country.