The Trump administration’s Zero Tolerance immigration policy highlights the immature mindset of the United States in regard to immigrants, migrants, and anyone who desires to cross our borders. It’s a fallback to isolationist policies that made it possible to deny entry to Jewish people fleeing Nazis and rationalize the encamping of our Japanese citizens. It effectively calls up our collective shadow of racism and slavery in its many forms.

Why is this so upsetting? Part of the Collective Story that we Americans hold (and tell ourselves) is an image of a welcoming country with the Statue of Liberty greeting foreigners as they come into “safe” harbor. The reality about what we collectively manifest in reality is something more complex. This is what we have the opportunity to transform – a narrative with a shadow side of racism. Can we do it? It’s a choice of individual and collective consciousness.

The current situation with children being separated from their parents at the border and put into camps is a horror show.

Not only does this non-process violate the very foundation of America’s Collective Story, it shows all the real flaws and darkness in the manifestation of this collective ideal of being a welcoming nation. The rationalization for these brutal actions reminds us of how “welcoming” foreigners in the past has actually occurred.

Experience shows us that newcomers contribute in important ways to our societal fabric. We benefit from diversity. They always add more than is taken.

Yet for many decades “entry” to our country has been made to be difficult and unpleasant by collective society – a process of pain and derision that has been accepted by the newcomers as the price to be paid for eventually being accepted. Something to get though until one is grudgingly treated like they belong.

There is a history of being terrible to whatever new group of people arrives, until the next wave of immigrants arrives to become the new center of disdainful focus. It’s a collective manifestation of the perspective: “I went through it, why not them.”

In this way America has behaved like a Frat House hazing potential newcomers. Immigrants are made to go through a gauntlet of pain and derision before we accept them into our fold. They are made fun of for their differences until they generally adopt our surface qualities.

Now, America seem to be turning its collective back on the stuff of its greatness – its immigrants entirely. With Trump’s No Tolerance policy, and the way it is being enforced is making us a Thug Nation. How deeply rooted are our values of a “great America” if they can be so easily unmoored, so easily shown to be false?

The hope from an evolutionary perspective is that we move pass a juvenile response to newcomers and open our hearts in true mature Welcome.

Grown-up consciousness does not go further down the path of racism and non-inclusion and using racist-based laws and policies to create prison populations for free labor. A mature America does not return political favors by manufacturing immigration issues and by giving political supporters detention facilities to run.

This is not an ideological debate about law. It is not a mental math problem to be worked out. This is an issue about the HEART of America. The United States and each of it’s citizens is being asked to make a mature moral choice about this issue.

No more pretending to be a land of welcome and not actually welcome people who are different from us. No more inauthenticity. All is transparent.

No longer will a collective narrative of being a welcoming committee for strangers be enough. The symbolic statue of liberty is not enough. The mask has fallen with Trump’s Zero Tolerance Policy.

Greatness is not a façade. Greatness is a core strength that permeates all layers of a society. We are failing the greatness test.

The energy behind the words truly matters. The intent behind the symbolic narrative truly matters. How we really show up matters!

Choose one thing, at least, to support the moral choice you are making between:

• The Immorality of heartless human usery and total abandon of compassion
• And, the morality of inclusion and heart-based service to others

Some issue have gray areas. This is not one of them. If we stand for children being 1)separated from their parents for doing what immigrants have done for decades – coming to our shores in hopes of safe harbor and a better life, and 2) do not ensure that the children are returned to their parents in a timely manner we are immoral and will stand for anything. If we do not process the parents immigration application in accordance with efficient and compassionate procedures, then any process can be rationalized.

If one chooses immorality, one chooses fear. Then one chooses to remain the immature human easily triggered into a fear state of reaction. This choice aligns to a subconscious run by a basic belief in the limits of humanity. This is heart contraction.

If one chooses morality, one chooses love. Then one chooses to evolve into a true adult capable of acting from the heart in a consistent manner showing care for the well-being of all. This choice is based in a belief about the potential of humanity. The adult American collective consciousness is able to worry about adequate resources for all citizens AND respond with faith and creativity, with hope and heart engagement. From the heart many solutions are possible. This is heart expansion.

Just as the collective narrative we have been telling ourselves about our reception is not the truth, we are invited to see that the fear-mongering immigration and border policies of the Trump administration – of the republicans and all politicians who stay silent – is not a reflection of any truth, but the truth of heartless power plays. To pretend they are based on any form of religion or spirituality or national value is making a choice to put the American mask back on, to hide in the shadow side of the American spirit.

Let’s collectively manifest a better heart-felt reality that moves us forward toward our collective potential rather than turning our backs on it.

May we all reach out. May we all engage our hearts in the healing of this narrative rift as we mature into being the LIVING representation of what we hoped to be all along: a Welcoming Nation of Unlimited Possibility. The possibility still exists. The question is will we accept the invitation to be more than we have ever been before? Will we accept the opportunity to let this issue break open our hearts personally and collectively?

This Fourth of July may you consciously decide what values you will live, what narrative you wish to live into and collectively manifest. No more carelessness and unconscious living of an old narrative. Let’s live and love into our true mature American potential. Let’s embrace that and each other.

Melissa Wadsworth is the author of Collective Manifestation: Heart-Centered Blueprints for Creating Intentional Community. www.collectivemanifestation.com.