As children, unaccompanied by adults, continue to reach the borders of the United States from Central America, one has to ponder their image of a safe haven in America. 

        Many reports cite a fear for the children's lives in their own country.  Drug cartels, gangs, death and other horrors of their homeland are presented as reasons for the exodus into the land of the free and the home of the brave.

        Latest reports now tell us that postings on social media, encouraging children to cross the Rio Grande to a better life with few consequences for doing so illegally, are providing the encouragement for many to take the dangerous chance and travel north.

        What the social media campaigns aren't reporting is that we, in the United States, have quite a bit to do in the area of protecting children.

        According to a Jan. 2014 Children's Defense Fund report, every day in America four children are killed by abuse or neglect, five children or teens commit suicide, seven children or teens are killed by guns, 24 children or teens die from accidents.  That's every day.

        Just this month, four children died when a fire consumed their home in Philadelphia.  The fire, still under investigation, is believed to have been started carelessly by fireworks or a cigarette igniting a couch on a neighbor's porch.

        Last week, a car stolen by a couple of thugs plowed into a fruit stand in North Philadelphia and killed three children and put their mother in the hospital.  The family was selling fruit to raise money for their church.

        In Delaware County, a father executed his 5-year-old son at a birthday party on Saturday.

        It's not just in the Philadelphia area.  In Saco, Maine a man killed his wife and three children as they slept on Saturday night.

        A few months ago, a three-month old baby died while in the care of a South Carolina woman who operated a daycare operation in her home.  The woman was not charged in the child's death, but what first-responders found were 24 children in the daycare which was only licensed to care for up to six.  Some of the children were found in a room with a loaded revolver and poisonous chemicals within reach.  Needless to say, she was charged with child neglect, violation of day care licensing and obstructing justice.

        In Greenwood, Colorado two children, along with four adults, were killed in a murder-suicide in May.  The children's ages were 11 and 9.

        According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 650 children ages 12 and under died in car accidents in 2011 (their latest reporting year).  Of the children who died, 1/3 were not wearing seatbelts.

        And the list of child sexual abuse in the United States is nothing short of sickening.

        The list of incidents goes on and on and no state is immune from this horror.

        We, as human beings, need to live up to our responsibilities of caring for children.  But, I have to pause and think about what kind of a job we can do with tens of thousands of immigrant children additionally pouring over our borders, when we do such a poor job with our own.