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I come from a family of refugees. I'm used to surviving and going with the flow, and what happened to me was just life.

My mother was one of seven girls whose parents went to bed hungry so their children wouldn't. My father lost his mother when he was nine. He left school and went to work for the next 70 years. They emigrated to America with little more than the hope of a better life.

Migration is the story of my life: my parents and grandparents journeyed across four continents to flee war and find jobs, eventually finding their way to the U.S.

I am the face of a refugee. I was once a refugee. I was with my family in exile.

We're so lucky where we live, but we're so out of touch. Everyone's mindset is made to feel that refugees are a problem, but it's more than that. They're human beings, too. They were forced from their homes.

Countries around the world have their own immigration laws and methods of dealing with a recurring theme: desperate people searching for peace from volatile parts of the world. And nations everywhere thrive and prosper from the contributions of immigrants and the children of immigrants - including right here in the U.S.

People end up fleeing countries who adopt economic policies based on these flawed principles. And more often than not, they come here.

Hundreds of millions of human beings on our planet increasingly suffer from unemployment, poverty, hunger, and the destruction of their families.

I have been a foreigner all my life, first as a daughter of diplomats, then as a political refugee and now as an immigrant in the U.S. I have had to leave everything behind and start anew several times, and I have lost most of my extended family.