Immigration

Jason Koon 7-18-2019

How can someone who claims to stand on family values possibly support a policy of family separation that, in many cases, leaves no possibility for future reunification? How can someone who claims to follow a man who taught us to love our enemies possibly support an administration that refuses to provide children with basic necessities like soap, toothbrushes, or even a decent night’s sleep? It doesn’t add up, and it’s time Christians stood up and took notice because the religiously unaffiliated already have.

Itzbeth Menjívar 7-16-2019

Photo by Filip Bunkens on Unsplash

The president of the United States has recently unleashed a barrage of racist and anti-immigrant tweets that are, in my opinion, in perfect alignment with who we have known him to be. While outrage is the appropriate societal response to such childish and harmful behavior, I do not believe that focusing our attention on tweets and xenophobic rhetoric is what will move us forward as a nation. What will move us forward as a nation is for everyone in this country to begin to understand the role that race plays in our white-dominated society, and the many ways in which most of us are complicit with this system of domination.

Asylum seekers from Central and South America wait on the Mexican side of the Brownsville/Gateway Bridge. Photo by Reynaldo Leal for The Texas Tribune

It’s not a matter of if, but when, a federal court will strike down the Trump administration’s latest attempt to rewrite laws governing who can receive asylum in the United States, immigration and legal experts said Monday.

A copy of the Pledge of Allegiance at the government's government's newest holding center for migrant children in Carrizo Springs, Texas July 9, 2019. Eric Gay/Pool via REUTERS

The Trump administration on Monday said it would take steps to make it more difficult for immigrants arriving on the southern border to seek asylum in the United States, putting the onus on them to ask for shelter in other countries.

Aaron E. Sanchez 7-11-2019

Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility in Clint, Texas, where migrant children are beng held. 29 June 2019. Via Shutterstock

A Univision poll found that millennial (ages 18-33) Latinx voters believed that Julián Castro did the best among all presidential candidates in the first Democratic primary debate. This demographic is important because nearly half of all Latinx voters in the U.S. are millennials. Castro is connecting with this emerging generation because of his shared experiences and shared convictions.

Image via Thomas Ilalaole

Juanita Cabrera Lopez, executive director of the International Mayan League and one of the organizers of the rally, said conditions have worsened since the nationwide protest against family separation last June. After the photo of a drowned Salvadoran father and daughter was published last week, Lopez said, the community became even more outraged.

Pilar Timpane 7-03-2019

These retablos reflect on the faith that people had to begin the journey of migration, entering a foreign land. Often leaving family and home into the unknown, on a journey that is fraught with peril but also promise. Young fathers and mothers, children of families who will pray for them daily as they go. As the exhibit description mentioned, these retablos "depict a side of migration usually not told in statistical reports or even in detailed interviews of migrants."

The Editors 7-03-2019

William Stringfellow

Shelter and Storm

Seeking Shelter: A Story of Place, Faith, and Resistance is a 30-minute documentary on the personal history of the late Christian activists Daniel Berrigan, William Stringfellow, and Anthony Towne. Using firsthand accounts, the film follows their work for civil rights, social justice, nuclear disarmament, and environmental action. Seekingshelterblockisland.org

Brandon Massey 7-03-2019

An overcrowded fenced area holding families at a Border Patrol station in McAllen, Texas. June 10, 2019. Office of Inspector General/DHS/Handout via REUTERS

As a student of the history of biblical interpretation, the rhetoric employed by Dobson and other evangelical leaders is frighteningly similar to that of German pastors and theologians in the Third Reich. It appears that Christians have either forgotten or are ignoring the dark history of Christianity’s marriage to partisan politics and nationalist agendas.

Sarah Little 7-03-2019

Advocacy groups MoveOn, United We Dream, the American Friends Service Committee, and Families Belong Together collectively hosted peaceful protest gatherings across the U.S. on July 2, calling on members of Congress to defund border detention centers immediately and #CloseTheCamps. The masses who protested outside the White House were not daunted when heavy rains greeted their chants.

Image via Ebony Curry and Kelly Rissman 

“ICE is coming into our communities and tearing apart families and tearing apart our community on a regular basis, and they did so just again last week,” Sanctuary DMV organizer Ben Beachy said. “We need our D.C. elected officials to make D.C. a real sanctuary city, which means severing all ties with ICE.”

Michael Hunn 6-26-2019

Activists hold candles vigil outside the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas, June 25, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

Before the finger pointing and blaming begins let me be clear: This is not a partisan issue. This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue. We have a moral responsibility to ensure that the conditions for every child are not just adequate but are as good as any parent would expect for their own children.

Screenshot via YouTube

A private organization supported by some of President Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters announced Monday that it constructed a short section of border fence over the weekend.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) temporary facilities for housing migrants are seen in Donna, Texas, U.S., May 15, 2019. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

Hunger strikes allow detained immigrants to regain their agency while simultaneously throwing themselves on the mercy of the very institution that has oppressed them.

Aaron E. Sanchez 5-14-2019

Sonoran desert near Phoenix, Ariz.

I stared down at the bones. Whether covered under centuries of sand or exposed to sun, the body was claimed by the desert in life and afterlife. Even though it had been uncovered decades earlier, the dust of the desert never released it from its grip. Father Francisco Eusebio Kino died far from his Italian home. Migrants along the way had told me of the crypt of the Jesuit priest who had missionized the Sonoran Desert 300 years prior. He first entered this desert on a mission in 1687 and it swallowed him in 1711.

Demonstrators gather outside the U.S. Supreme Courthouse in Washington, U.S., April 23, 2019. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

The court has a 5-4 conservative majority and has backed Trump in other high-profile cases. Conservative justices indicated a citizenship question would be eminently reasonable, noting that other countries use such questions and that the United States has done so in the past in one form or another.

Vera Broekhuysen 4-17-2019

Cantor Broekhuysen leading Mincha services at the border wall. 

It was Wednesday, March 27th. I was one of 20 rabbis and cantors, assembled by T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), to witness and report on the border. A few hours earlier, CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan (now ICE’s acting director) had held a press conference at the same spot.

Karen González 4-16-2019

Moses found in the river. Fresco from Dura Europos synagogue. Via Wikimedia Commons

There have always been demagogues. Those who win power and popularity by arousing the prejudices of the people. Demagoguery was not invented by Donald Trump or Hitler. I’ll bet even Pharaoh in the book of Exodus didn’t invent the concept, but he perfected it. He never knew Joseph, the son of Jacob. He didn’t personally benefit from Joseph’s leadership and wisdom. Joseph, a Hebrew man brought to Egypt as a victim of human trafficking, but who with God’s favor rose to become the most powerful man in Egypt — he was the man whose interpretations of dreams saved everyone from famine.

Camille Erickson 4-15-2019

Migrants queue as they listen to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials after crossing illegally into the United States to request asylum, in El Paso, Texas, U.S., in this picture taken from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, April 5, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

In June 2018, the Trump administration issued a “zero tolerance” policy in an effort to deter migrants, a majority from Central America, from entering the U.S. The policy resulted in the separation of nearly 2,800 immigrant children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border in a little over a month.

U.S. President Donald Trump and former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Nov. 16, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

It will come as no surprise when President Trump continues his anti-immigrant agenda, ignoring well-established U.S. asylum law and putting children and families in harm’s way even after Secretary Nielsen’s abrupt departure. We know that President Trump forced Secretary Nielsen to resign to find someone willing to enforce even more cruelty at the border. The question now is what unchecked harm he will unleash after the purge of the Department of Homeland Security is complete.