The Huffington Post published a letter from an immigrant mother to Michelle Obama, pleading for immigration reform because she has been “refused the right” by the United States to raise her two children with her husband at her side. He was deported 22 years ago. 

For nearly my entire life, I have been a victim of harsh immigration laws, laws that have rendered my children fatherless. In addition to being a single mother, I am an immigrant and a minority woman, which only compounds the struggles that I have had to face. I have worked up to three jobs at once in order to meet my family’s daily needs. I have had many years where I was only able to see my children in time to put them to bed at night and early enough to send them off to school in the morning. Summertime was even more tragic when I had no choice but to leave my children at home alone for hours at a time while I tried to make ends meet. It was my faith and my prayers that allowed my children to remain safe and to thrive within their own lives.

Today I can proudly tell you that my children have surpassed all expectations that society placed on them based on heartbreaking statistics. My children refused to be defined by the assumption they would be trapped in a cycle of poverty. Both of my children have gone on to become successful professionals, graduating from the University of Notre Dame and the University of Houston. They persevered as best they could with the resources that were given to them.

Now I ask you to please just imagine how different our lives would have been if my husband and their father, had been at our side. If my children were able to accomplish all they have without their father, can you imagine how much further they could have gone with him? Would having their father at home to love and support them be a hindrance in their excellence? I would have been able to celebrate Mother’s Day in a much different light. I would have had my partner and my confidant to help me with the obstacles of life instead of having to face them alone. I have lived in quiet submission to this injustice for many years believing that I was alone in this ordeal. Now, as I watch the growing number of mothers who are facing what I have faced, I am appalled and saddened that our country is destroying American families.

I can only imagine the comfort and gratitude you must feel when you watch your husband provide love and support for your daughters. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 24 million children, one out of every three, live without a biological father present in their life. More than 5,100 U.S. children are in foster care because their parents are detained or deported. These statistics display a major crisis in our country. Our country’s immigration laws are only adding to this devastating epidemic as hundreds of thousands of people, many of them parents, are deported every year.

From one mother to another, I ask you to support laws that stop deporting our fathers (and mothers) and to reunite families. You and your husband can help me and our beloved country resolve this crisis affecting so many mothers.

Just listen to her language: Victim. Harsh. Tragic. Quiet submission to this injustice. Ordeal. Our country is destroying American families. Crisis affecting so many mothers. Devastating epidemic.

Has this woman stopped to consider that she is the cause of her own suffering? That her choices are the source of her own pain? Her husband’s choices? Has she ever considered that her children have suffered because her husband chose to ignore the laws of this “beloved country” instead of obeying them like countless other immigrants have done?

Has she ever stood in front of a mirror and seen her own reflection and realized even for a fleeting moment that she and her husband are the ones who robbed their children of their father’s comfort and strength—not the United States of America? Has she ever reflected on the fact that when you choose to do what’s wrong, you inevitably pay the price—and that can be quite an “ordeal”? 

While I have the greatest sympathy for people who are suffering, even on account of their own mistakes, I have little patience with people who won’t admit the part they play in the tribulations of their own lives.

The author of this letter, Patricia Guillen, never admits her husband’s own culpability. Never does she confess he did anything wrong. Never does she talk about the possibility of moving to be with her husband. Getting her children into a good college was obviously more important than having them raised with their father. What was keeping them from leaving the U.S. and returning to their country of origin? Poverty? Violence? We don’t know. She doesn’t say. There might be some very good reasons for not moving back to be with her husband. But that was still her choice. She weighed her values and chose to stay here rather than reunite her family.

I can sympathize with her children. I grew up with my father absent most of the time. He was a U.S. Marine. He served in Vietnam and later worked in other countries as a topographical surveyor. He would be gone for long periods, leaving my mother to care for us on her own. We didn’t have much money — and she had to work too. I grew up often alone, coming home to an empty house. That was the choice my parents made in service to the country they loved.

Why did these children not have their father with them? Because he broke the law and then he chose not to take his family with him when he had to leave the country. That was his choice. America didn’t “do” anything to them. They aren’t victims of harsh laws (and even if they are harsh, the Guillens knew the laws when they came here and still violated them—try doing that in Mexico, for example, and you’ll see what “harsh” really looks like). 

There’s no injustice here, and I’m more than offended by Ms. Guillen’s accusation that this great nation is “destroying families.” My father and my grandfather fought for this country, bled for this country. My father is disabled now because of that service. He fought for what is good and true and just—and he left his own family in order to do it. I won’t stand by and quietly submit to accusations leveled at my country by a woman whose husband has disrespected it by violating its laws, a woman who claims to be the victim because she had to live with the consequences of his and her own choices.

She is right about one thing. Her children are victims. They’re victims of their parents’ decisions. Patricia Guillen needs to turn her finger around and aim it at herself. Her suffering is her own fault, not the fault of this wonderful country. Stop demanding your self-defined “rights,” Ms. Guillen, and teach your children a lesson they really need to learn: Take responsibility for your own actions, stop playing the victim, and do what is right.

The devastating epidemic we face in this country is a lack of personal responsibility, as people demand rights that aren’t rights at all and then pretend to be victims when they don’t get what they want. This is the crisis we face, and if we don’t do something about it, we will wake up one day to find our “beloved country” isn’t so beloved anymore. The opportunities people like Ms. Guillen so cherish won’t be there any longer. And where will we flee to then? Where is the next shining light on the hill? There isn’t one. That’s why we need to preserve this one — and we can’t do that if people aren’t willing to obey our laws, respect our Constitution, and take responsibility for their own choices.