Immigration

Immigrant women hold their children along the border wall as they await apprehension after illegally crossing into the U.S. from Mexico on Aug. 29, 2018. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

The Trump administration said on Thursday that it plans to withdraw from a federal court agreement that strictly limits the conditions under which authorities can detain migrant children, and proposed new rules that it said would enable it to detain minors during their immigration proceedings.

Photo courtesy Adam Phillips

Knowing that so many more suffer from inhumane incarceration, I joined with more than 20 interfaith clergy from around Oregon and got arrested “for failure to comply” by sitting in a prayer circle in front of the main gates of our local ICE field office. We were gathered with hundreds of others, lifting up stories of those still detained and separated from families, singing songs of lament and joy, and praying that justice would prevail.

Sarah Ngu 8-30-2018

Although New York state has passed $15 minimum wage legislation, there are thousands of home health care workers, mostly immigrant women of color, who are paid only half of the hours they work.

Epifania Hinchez, who immigrated to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic in her 40s, worked as a home health care worker for 17 years in NYC. The heavy-lifting – her last patient weighed 290 pounds and could not walk – required in her job led to shoulder and wrist injuries, as well as nerve damage which has required surgery. For her entire career as a home health attendant, she has only been paid for 13 hours of her 24-hour shifts.

ICE detainees are seen at the Adelanto immigration detention center in Adelanto, Calif. April 13, 2017. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

I am in a cramped waiting room overflowing with the family members of detained immigrants. There is no bathroom easily accessible nor any other amenity. Family members and other visitors, many of them children, wait for hours here at Stewart Immigration Detention Facility for the opportunity to spend the one hour they are permitted per week with their loved one. When a staff member finally ushers me back to meet with a detainee at this Georgia facility, I notice that his employee badge bears the slogan, “CoreCivic: Pride in All We Do!”

the Web Editors 8-21-2018
LUCAS JACKSON

2018 MTV Video Music Awards - Show - Radio City Music Hall, New York, U.S., August 20, 2018 - Logic performs "One Day". LUCAS JACKSON

Joined by OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder, Logic used his VMA stage time as a powerful protest of the Trump aministration’s family separation policy that has removed thousands of children from their parents.

Rabbi Salem Pearce 8-17-2018

Photo provided by Rabbi Salem Pearce

A few weeks ago, I saw evidence that our government treats animals better than it treats immigrants. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service maintains a watering trough for passing cattle. This trough destroys gallons of water intended for human beings.

When I saw this injustice, I had already been in the desert for several hours in 110 plus degree heat. I was sweating profusely but I was chilled to the bone.

the Web Editors 8-17-2018

1. What Can Change in the Wake of the Pennsylvania Sex Abuse Report?
“I don’t know that [the Catholic Church can] come back from this, and I don’t know if they should.”

2. Do Religious People Know More About Politics?
This quick study ranks political knowledge by religious affiliation. Lookin’ at you, Episcopalians.

Undocumented immigrant families walk from a bus depot to a respite center after being released from detention in McAllen, Texas, July 26, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

Over the past four months, news from the border has chronicled the stories of families detained and separated — many of them seeking asylum from gang violence in Central America. Children as young as 8 months have been taken from their parents and sent across the country to children’s shelters, privately run detention centers, and, some, to foster families. Now, 20 days after a court-imposed deadline, more than 550 children still have not been returned to their parents, at least 300 of whom have been deported.

Ken Wolter / Shutterstock.com

Ken Wolter / Shutterstock.com

“Abolish ICE” is no mere campaign slogan. It is a goal focused on dismantling a single young agency. I believe that, in its historical context, “Abolish ICE” is part of a larger vision to build a new a social order committed to the liberation of all.

Edward Matthews 8-09-2018

Image via REUTERS/Mike Blake

While the INS’s mission was primarily to maintain control of the border and monitor immigration, the CBP’s mission aims to “safeguard America's borders thereby protecting the public from dangerous people”. The shift in mission from INS to CBP reflects an emphasis on anti-terrorism rather than immigration management.

Elizabeth Evans 8-07-2018

Samuel Oliver-Bruno at CityWell UMC. Photo by Elizabeth Evans

Oliver-Bruno is one of six people publicly in sanctuary in the state (a seventh doesn’t want to be identified). During the 1980s, more than 100 churches sheltered Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants, and the movement has seen somewhat of a national revival in recent years. Though sanctuary churches often attract media attention, the men and women living behind church doors represent a network of families and communities living under the unpredictable threat of government-sponsored raids and arrests.

the Web Editors 8-06-2018

Undocumented immigrant families walk from a bus depot to a respite center after being released from detention in McAllen, Texas, U.S., July 26, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

"Imagine your family ripped apart. That’s going to have reverberations across family members for years to come."

the Web Editors 8-03-2018

Image via REUTERS/Callaghan O'Hare. 

Immigrants have described the conditions in detention centers as “hieleras,” the Spanish word for ice boxes, and “perreras,” the Spanish word for dog pounds. In Laredo, Texas, a mother fleeing violence in Honduras with her two young sons said in a statement that they family was forced to sleep on the hard floor of the holding cell, clothes still wet from crossing the Rio Grande. Mothers also said they were given little to no food and are unable to produce enough breast milk to feed their children.

the Web Editors 8-03-2018

3. They Went Viral in the Videos of #LivingWhileBlack. Now They’re Running for Office and Becoming Activists

“It seems a new video emerges every week in the burgeoning genre of white people siccing police on nonwhite people for taking part in everyday activities … Now, some of the small but growing numbers of people featured in those videos are using the attention to run for office, become activists, form nonprofits or otherwise enter the fray of race, politics and social change.”

4. Is Neuroscience Getting Closer to Explaining Evil Behavior?

Why some people choose to do evil remains a puzzle, but are we starting to understand how this behavior is triggered?

Witness Commander Jonathan D. White  during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing July 31, 2018. REUTERS/Allison Shelley

A senior official at the U.S. agency charged with caring for migrant children believed separating them from their parents carried "significant risk" of harm and said on Tuesday concerns had been raised internally before the Trump administration made it official policy. 

Undocumented immigrant families walk from a bus depot to a respite center after being released from detention in McAllen, Texas, July 26, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

Lawsuits can force the government to change its policies, as has now happened with the apparent end to the family separation policy. But lawsuits do not always achieve the results intended. Since legal proceedings usually take years to adjudicate, they are often settled before running their course – well out of public view.

Sandi Villarreal 7-27-2018

Douglas Almendarez poses with his wife Evelin Meyer holding a photo of their son, in La Union, in Olancho state Honduras July 14, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw earlier this week praised the government's efforts to reunify some of the more than 2,500 children who had been separated from their parents upon crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in advance of the July 26 deadline. Yet as of that deadline, 711 children ages 5-17 remain in U.S. custody. Another 46 children under the age of 5 also have yet to be reunited with their parents

Giulia Petroni 7-26-2018

Earlier this week, it was reported that at least 460 parents may have already been deported without their children, leaving reunification possibilities unclear.

Jim Wallis 7-26-2018

In a time when bipartisanship seems like a forgotten dream, it is important for us to find and celebrate cases of lawmakers coming together, regardless of party and ideology, to address the many real and immediate challenges we face as a country. Especially on issues of importance to the faith community, we should encourage bipartisan cooperation that seeks justice and mercy for families, communities, and those otherwise marginalized across our nation. Recently, there have been two steps forward on this front, especially with regard to the work that Sojourners has been doing on immigration, poverty, and racism.

Stacey Merkt 7-25-2018

OUR GOVERNMENT HAS taken the stance that Salvadoran “illegals” are economic, not political, refugees, and therefore have no right to be here. Despite stories and statistics to the contrary, our government doesn’t believe they have a “well-founded fear of persecution” that would entitle them to political asylum here. Meanwhile refugees keep coming with the same story of their government’s organized killing and repression. Where are our ears to hear and to respond? I am appalled at the inhumanity I see. I am standing in the belly of the beast, a monster we’ve created. ...

The core that sustains me is the still, small voice. It is God whom I wish to hear.