There have been members of my family who moved to the U.S. to avoid conscription in Prussia and Bavaria during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I see no shame in that, and see no honor in serving the Hohenzollerns or Hapsburgs or the kings of Bavaria.

I also see no shame in more recent immigrants wanting to leave what has happened in Mexico in the last century. If the U.S. wants to claim to be "the land of the free," then it should welcome such immigrants with open arms. And since we are partly to blame for the war in Syria, we have a moral obligation to welcome refugees from that war - just like we welcomed refugees from Germanic nations in the late 19th century.

-Joe-