God “enacts justice for orphans and widows, and he loves immigrants, giving them food and clothing. That means you must also love immigrants because you were immigrants in Egypt.” Deuteronomy 10:18-19, Common English Bible
By Rev. Noel Andersen
Alabama’s House Bill 56 is the harshest anti-immigrant legislation yet to pass in the United States. Alabama is now the epicenter of the immigration debate.
That’s why, just a few weeks after beginning my work with Church World Service as the Grassroots Coordinator for Immigrants’ Rights, I knew it was important to spend some time in Alabama. I spent much of December in Alabama, returning in January, for meetings with pastors, speaking in churches and coordinating training for organizers.
When I heard the stories of persecution and devastation on immigrant communities it gave me flashbacks to the struggle we faced in Arizona against SB 1070. The Arizona law made it a requirement for local police to investigate the citizenship status of anyone whom they considered “reasonably suspicious,” creating an atmosphere of xenophobia, fear and racial profiling that caused many to flee the state.
At the time I was Assistant Pastor at the Good Shepherd United Church of Christ (UCC) in Sahuarita, Ariz., a church that has long been a voice for migrants’ rights on the U.S. – Mexico border. As a church we felt called to respond to SB 1070’s harsh imposition on already vulnerable communities.
Alabama’s HB 56 is a copycat law to SB 1070, but worse because it mandates that public schools check students’ citizenship status, and it criminalizes giving rides, “harboring” or engaging in any contract with undocumented people.
“Everything has become more difficult. Because of this law we have problems with work, housing, transportation, education and health care,” said Trini (last name withheld), from Tuscaloosa, Ala., a member of Somos (We Are) Tuscaloosa. “This anti-immigrant law is affecting so many families, including mine.”
The impact on the faith community has been particularly poignant in a “Bible Belt” state that has a church on every corner. Laura Gonzalez, a local organizer in Athens, Ala., described how her Pentecostal church, which was predominately Latino, had completely disbanded after the passing of HB 56. After celebrating a Spanish-language mass, a Catholic priest told me that attendance is down by about 25 percent. Many church-based English as Second Language courses have been abandoned, while congregations from mainline to conservative encountered a serious challenge to their religious freedom from HB 56’s attempt to criminalize “harboring and transporting” – which, thankfully, has now been temporarily blocked by the courts.
There has been a swelling movement in resistance to this inhumane and unjust law. The United Methodist, Episcopal and Catholic bishops in Alabama have spoken out against the HB 56 and have found growing support. The United Methodists have held various educational forums, and have developed a sign on letter that has more than 200 clergy signatures to date.
Church World Service was invited by the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice to support an effort to develop a statewide network of faith communities to support the Repeal of HB 56. Church World Service has been meeting and calling on religious leaders across the state to respond to the crisis of HB 56 by getting their congregations involved with the state advocacy work against the bill. Together CWS, Greater Birmingham Ministries and Faith in Public Life are developing trainings and workshops, to be held in houses of worship, regarding how to understand immigration from a faith perspective.
The faithful resistance combined with growing mobilizations of base communities has forced politicians who voted for HB 56 to back down from their hardline stance and consider amendments to HB 56 in response to the so called “unintended consequences.” As we continue to organize with Alabama faith communities, we hope we gain enough support to repeal HB 56 and set an example for other states such as Pennsylvania, Virginia and Missouri that are considering similar anti-immigrant legislation.
Out of the values to protect the common good and uplift human dignity, we are called to continue this work and make our states into “safe spaces” that welcome the immigrant as our faith traditions mandate.
Rev. Noel Andersen is Church World Service Grassroots Coordinator for Immigrants’ Rights, Washington, D.C.
Central to all faith traditions are the principles of the common good, human dignity and love for one’s neighbor. In many of our sacred texts the value of welcoming the stranger is an explicit mandate and primary tenet of our faith as in the Abrahamic traditions where it reads as below:
“You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 22:21).
However, U.S. immigration enforcement policies have only become harsher and more inhumane in recent years. Immigrant communities are increasingly targeted, profiled, apprehended, detained and deported, creating an environment of increasing fear. Secure Communities allows ICE to identify, process, and remove immigrants incarcerated in federal, state, and local jails. This leads further criminalization of migrants wherein minor violations, often traffic stops, turns into an investigation of citizenship status where many are therein detained. Furthermore, low-priority non-violent offenders or even citizens are being funneled into this program needlessly separating hundreds of thousands of families. This is done in the face of Department of Homeland Security’s own task force report that concluded that S.Comm sows mistrust of police and makes communities less safe.
In a speech ICE Director John Morton gave to the International Association of Chiefs of Police on October 25, 2011 he boasted of the total 396,960 individuals deported, the largest in the agencies history[1], but what about the 180,208 individuals who had been neither convicted nor arrested for any criminal offense? They are funneled into an unjust deportation system without rights to due process. Tragically, many of those removed in this category were U.S. residents of many years. Many of them are parents, wives and husbands whose families are left broken in the wake of an unmerciful policy.
“They treat you like the worst of criminals when in reality you have done nothing besides drive your car to work in order to survive. You do this without a license because the system does not allow it.[2]”- Fernando, Arizona
Programs such as Secure Communities create an atmosphere of xenophobia that has proven detrimental for the all immigrant and refugee communities, regardless of their documentation status. As people of faith we are called by a moral imperative to take an ethical stance for just policies and speak out against these enforcement practices hurting so many through separation of families, breaking apart whole communities and takes advantage of marginalized communities for political gain.
Our faith now calls us to be part of changing this unjust policy and ask that Secure Communities be permanently halted and recommend the following:
1) The Secure Communities program should be ended.
2) The Department of Justice Office of Inspector General should begin an investigation into the FBI’s role in Secure Communities.
3) Criticism of Secure Communities should be applied to inform changes to other ICE ACCESS programs, and the entanglement of local criminal law enforcement and federal civil immigration functions should be stopped and reversed.
4) States and localities should not be compelled to participate in immigration enforcement programs, including the forwarding of fingerprints and other biometric information to the Department of Homeland Security
We cannot build strong communities if they’re being torn apart. Instead we ask for a more viable solution of working towards a humane comprehensive immigration reform that can provide a pathway to citizenship for so many deserving members of our society.
This blogpost is based on a faith leaders’ letter to the Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. Click here for the Faith Letter to End S-Comm with signatories.
- New Bible translation uses “immigrant”
By Robert Parham
Using the word “immigrant” in the Bible is faithful to the ancient texts, not misusing the Bible to fit an ideological agenda, Parham writes.
The word “immigrant” now appears in a new translation of the Bible, replacing the word “stranger” or “alien.”
This is a concretizing and humanizing improvement of the biblical witness, removing the moral abstraction of “stranger” and depersonalization of “alien.”
Both the King James Version and the New Revised Standard Version use “stranger,” for example, in Deuteronomy 10:18-19, leaving readers and hearers to fill in the blank about who constitutes the stranger in their community.
Is it a homeless person? A person of color? A foreign student? A snow bird? “Stranger” is too abstract. Abstraction contributes to the evasion of moral responsibility for the immigrant.
The New American Standard Bible, on the other hand, uses “alien,” offering a proof text for UFO adherents and triggering images for church members of E.T. “Alien” is too other worldly.
The word “immigrant” makes the Bible’s witness completely relevant and the Bible’s moral imperative inescapable for the faithful.
Review how some texts now read.
God “enacts justice for orphans and widows, and he loves immigrants, giving them food and clothing. That means you must also love immigrants because you were immigrants in Egypt,” reads Deuteronomy 10:18-19.
Or read Leviticus 19:10: “Also do not pick your vineyard clean or gather up all the grapes that have fallen there. Leave these items for the poor and the immigrant; I am the LORD your God.”
Genesis 15:13 reads: “Then the LORD said to Abram, ‘Have no doubt that your descendants will live as immigrants in a land that isn’t their own, where they will be oppressed slaves for four hundred years.’”
Exodus 23:9 says, “Don’t oppress an immigrant. You know what it’s like to be an immigrant, because you were immigrants in the land of Egypt.”
1 Peter 2:11 reads: “Dear friends, since you are immigrants and strangers in the world, I urge that you avoid worldly desires that wage war against your lives.”
Thumbs up for the new Common English Bible.
The Common English Bible results from a collaborative effort among mainline Protestant denominations that cost some $3.5 million and involved 700 people, including 17 folk from the Baptist tradition.
Explaining the switch from stranger to immigrant, Paul Franklyn, associate publisher, wrote: “The Hebrew word ger has several meanings in the Old Testament. In some contexts it is translated as foreigner or stranger or exile. In many contexts the translations from the mid-twentieth century used the word alien. The Common English Bible will often translate this word as immigrant, which is the most up-to-date meaning of gur or ger in the English language.”
Franklyn noted that the shift in language does not eliminate society’s fear of immigrants.
“Most of us are by nature xenophobic. We have a fear of strangers, provided that we got here first,” he wrote. “This phobia is not eliminated by switching from alien to immigrant in our common language. But it does help the participants in the modern political debate to think about what the Bible has to say about the ger.”
Using the word “immigrant” in the Bible is faithful to the ancient texts, not misusing the Bible to fit an ideological agenda.
Being faithful to the Bible will shape the church’s mission and vision, which in turn ought to affect the nation’s political agenda.
Posted to EthicsDaily.com: Monday, November 28, 2011 6:49 am
Cross-Posted with Permission: Monday, December 5, 2011
Robert Parham is executive editor of EthicsDaily.com and executive director of its parent organization, the Baptist Center for Ethics.
Visit GospelWithoutBorders.net to learn more about EthicsDaily.com’s new documentary on faith and immigration.
Marching against SB 1070 in Phoenix
This represents a change in momentum at the roots of the experiential anti-immigrant legislation that has been copied in other states such as Alabama HB 56, Georgia HB 87 and others that remain pending in other states. Pearce’s recall sends a clear message to other politicians that championing anti-immigrant legislation is not politically smart. Indeed, further backlash to such harsh and controversial law making has been seen in Alabama, where Governor Bentley (R) is now talking with business and law enforcement groups to collect suggested changes on HB 56. State Senator Beasley (R-AL) has introduced legislation to repeal the newly enacted law, claiming most representatives did not understand the negative effects that the law would have on citizens of Alabama.
“For years, Arizona has been beaten into the ground with senseless legislation that has focused on the marginalized and most vulnerable in our society—the undocumented migrant,” commented Rev. Randy Mayer of the Good Shepherd United Church of Christ in Sahuarita, Arizona, who helps coordinate a Samaritan ministry putting out life-saving water to prevent migrant deaths in the desert on the U.S.- Mexico border.
Pearce’s recall makes it clear that voters chose a different path for Arizona, as Jerry Lewis, who is also a Republican but holds a much more humane stance on immigration, defeated Pearce by a significant 8 percent. Citizens for a Better Arizona and immigrant rights groups registered more than 1,500 new voters in the campaign to recall Pearce. Their successful strategy shows the importance of engaging in electoral politics and educating the public on each candidate’s stance and voting record on immigration.
This recent success for immigrants and their allies is one to be celebrated and learned from. “This is a new day with a bright horizon for Arizona—may the rest of the country take notice and gain strength and courage to stand up to the bullies like Pearce. For God’s ways of love and radical hospitality will ultimately rule the day,” a prophetic witness from Rev. Mayer inspiring people of faith to action. Now is the time to call your legislators and let them know that laws like SB1070 have no place in your state, and instead they should support humane reforms that unite separated families and provide a pathway to legal status for those who are undocumented. Find contact information for your state legislators at www.congress.org.
Columnists Pat and Chuck Wemstrom
By Pat and Chuck Wemstrom
Mary Bauer, legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, described “people overwhelmed with fear; husbands who cannot take their wives to the hospital to give birth; sick people who refuse to go to the hospital to receive emergency care; thousands of terrorized children who are out of school; children who do go to school are subject to discriminatory treatment and harassment.”
The US Supreme Court declared that all children are entitled to a public school education no matter their immigration status. But reports abound of Hispanic children being called out of class and questioned. In some parts of Alabama people who cannot provide proof of legal status are being refused water service. Since many illegal immigrants have a spouse or children who are US citizens, even some citizens are being denied plumbing and drinking water.
Why not replace the migrant farm workers, who are mainly Hispanic immigrants both legal and illegal, with American workers? Timothy Egan (New York Times, October 20) reports that a farmer in Colorado, John Harold, tried to hire only US citizens for his harvest positions. But the work in the onion fields was so difficult that most people did not last even a day. And in Washington even the offer of $150 a day attracted few pickers.
Greg Asbed, co-founder of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, and Sean Sellers, both of whom have harvested watermelons, describe in a Nation article (October 31) the skill needed for that job. Workers must learn complex signs of a watermelon’s ripeness; they can be fired for picking green melons. They must know how to throw thirty-pound fruits “with just the right arc,” often alongside a moving truck. They must toss melons to another worker as much as ten feet away without bruising the fruit. And they can be fired for wrongly estimating the weights of melons when they are moving past two per second on a conveyor belt.
Most daunting is the endurance necessary. In a hot summer, maybe 100 degrees, they work up to sixteen hours a day.
The shortage of farm workers, instead of resulting in a realization that immigrant labor is needed, has often resulted in even harsher laws. The H-2A system makes it impossible for farmworkers to change employers. And in spite of the fact that millions of undocumented workers have fueled our economy, many still scapegoat them by passing, or threatening to pass, even more draconian laws.
Asbed and Sellers say that so much power concentrated in the employers has led to abusive, often horrendous treatment of workers. In December 2008 Cesar and Geovanni Navarrete received 12-year prison sentences for enslaving Mexican and Guatemalan tomato pickers in Florida. Worker Mariano Lucas Diego spoke of “beatings and nighttime imprisonment in a truck, where the [Navarrete] family’s captives would have to urinate and defecate in corners.”
Joseph Viacava, attorney for Cesar Navarrete, objected to the system’s hypocrisy. “We have a migrant worker being prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law with all the government’s resources while these multimillion dollar agricultural corporations stay off in the distance,” he said. “If the corporations are going to employ these illegal migrant workers, they should be equally responsible.”
When we pointed out recently that crossing the border illegally is a misdemeanor, not a crime, and compared it to speeding, readers reprimanded us for comparing the two. They’re probably right. If you speed, you can kill someone. Whereas if you cross the border you may be guilty only of cutting Mitt Romney’s lawn.
Herman Cain has even suggested building a fence that will electrocute anyone who tries to cross it: an extreme punishment for a misdemeanor. Egan suggests that some Republicans want to replace “Give me your tired, your poor” with “Kill the Mexicans.”
We must recognize that there are some jobs most American citizens simply will not do. There should be a path to legal residency for the 11 million undocumented workers that are already in the country and guest worker programs that allow workers to come here and work.
Asbed and Sellers say huge retailers (they name Walmart, Kroger, Publix and Trader Joe’s) if they raised the price of tomatoes by a penny a pound, could cause wages to go up 70 percent. “A 40 percent farmworker wage increase would require the average American household to spend only $15 more per year on fruits and vegetables.”
Can we afford to pay $15 more per year? Can we afford not to?
Pat and Chuck Wemstrom live in rural Mount Carroll. They can be reached at patandchuck@gmail.com. Also visit Chuck and Pat’s blog on the J-S web page, and Chuck’s new blog at www.viewfromchuckswindow.blogspot.com.
Alabama’s HB requires police officers to act as immigration officers by demanding proof of legal status from anyone who looks foreign, voids contracts made with undocumented persons, and requires proof of legal status from school children. Even though national law requires that all children be allowed education, many parents are removing their children from school. If this law does nothing else, it has terrorized the Latino community down to the youngest members.
The following is a translation of a news clip from Univision, Padres temoros en Alabama por nueva ley.
Reporter: These are drawings that will never be displayed in a gallery.
Girl: I was driving in the van with my mom and dad when the police stopped us and they took my mommy and daddy. Cries.
Reporter: But they are drawings born of HB56 that were made last night by the dozens in a house in the outskirts of Birmingham even though it was the middle of the night. A meeting had been planned to speak with the parents but it quickly turned into a catharsis of youthful sorrow.
Boy: This is my family. We are in the United States. Immigration wants to send them back to Mexico and I am really scared of the cartels that are there. Reporter: What are those?
Boy: Those are bullets because it’s really dangerous. There are dead people everywhere.
Little girl: When she sees a relative cry, she cries. Because… I don’t know… it’s sad.
Reporter: To Lucy, little sister of Ashley, something terrible has happened for someone her age. She has to leave her school, and with it, her friends. Even though for others in this place, school is different because of other reasons.
Reporter: Are you going to go to school?
Little boy: No. No. Reporter: You’re not going to school tomorrow? Little Boy: No. Reporter: Why not? Little boy: Because I’m not a citizen and I am afraid that they will discriminate against me and immigration is going to grab me.
Reporter: This father is scared for his 7-year-old boy because of discrimination from Anglo children. Reporter: What do they say to him? Father: They call him Mexican, they want to send him back to Mexico. Kid: I always wanted to be a biologist and now my dream is nothing. Reporter: You shouldn’t only be sad for him, but also for his mother, for every time she leaves the house. Kid: I’m an American, but what good does that do me if my family isn’t here? I can’t be here without my parents and they are going to take my mom away from here.
Report: This terror combines children, schools, and deportation.
Superintendant of the Department of Education: What is done with this information is not stated in the law, so I have no answer for you.
Reporter: For the official, it was important to make this clarification.
Superintendant: Those that are already enrolled in the 132 public school systems statewide in Alabama, you don’t have to worry because it is permanent. If they are new registrations, yes the law will require your documents.
Reporter: This law is really ironic in part because in Alabama every child must attend school, if their parents do not take their children to school they can be accused for a felony. But what will happen with the HB56? Those who try to fulfill with their responsibilities and obey this law can simply be given the order to be deported. But Elena, everything is confusion and that’s the situation this Thursday here in Alabama.
When the Rev. Mary Ellen Finegan of Central United Methodist Church in Fairmont, W.Va., stood up to preach on a recent Sunday, she knew that her message would be controversial with some members.
She was about to speak out in support of the DREAM Act, a bipartisan bill that would provide a path to citizenship for some undocumented youth. (Click here to read her sermon.)
Central’s Sept. 25 service is counted among the more than 350 “DREAM Sabbath” observances – many of them listed at www.dreamsabbath.org – that took place in 45 U.S. states Sept. 16 through Oct. 9. A diverse array of faith communities and DREAM-eligible youth united in this national effort to urge Congress to pass the DREAM Act.
View Faith Community Events to Raise
Awareness for the DREAM Act in a larger map
As Pastor Finegan shook hands with congregants after service, she was pleased to receive affirmations of support from people who previously had opposed the DREAM Act. “Thanks for explaining the difference between the DREAM Act and amnesty,” one said.
Another told Pastor Finegan: “Well, if the DREAM Act is really the way you presented it, with all these facts, I am for it! Who wouldn’t want children who grew up with our children to have the same rights that citizenship can afford?”
The DREAM Act would allow some undocumented immigrant students the opportunity to earn legal status if they came to the United States as children, are long-term U.S. residents, have good moral character and complete two years of college or military service. Last year, the bill came a mere five votes short of passage in the U.S. Senate.
Church World Service through its Immigration and Refugee Program is a sponsor of DREAM Sabbath as part of its broader advocacy for the DREAM Act and fair, humane reform of the U.S. immigration system.
Rev. John L. McCullough, Executive Director and CEO of Church World Service, said, “Why do I support the DREAM Act? Because I care about young people and I care about their future. My wife and I are parents of three daughters, two of them college graduates and one still in college. There’s nothing we want more for them than for them to thrive.
“Our daughters are the same age as many of the young people who would benefit from the DREAM Act – an educated generation of promising immigrant students who have demonstrated a commitment to hard work. They consider the United States their home and want to contribute their talents to this country. They are a vital and valuable asset to this nation.”
Many DREAM Sabbath events feature as speakers undocumented young people who would benefit from the DREAM Act. DREAMer Moises Serrano was one of four undocumented youths who shared their stories Sept. 25 at Galloway Memorial Episcopal Church in Elkin, N.C.
Serrano was less than two years old when his parents brought him north to escape poverty and violence in Mexico. He grew up in Yadkin County, N.C., and graduated high school with a high grade point average. The DREAMers “are not criminals,” Serrano said. “All we want to do is get an education and give back. … I want to own a house. I want to settle down.”
Galloway’s Vicar, the Rev. Gaye Brown, reflecting on the congregation’s DREAM Sabbath, said, “The congregation was so supportive of these young people and so beautifully welcoming.”
Read more about Galloway’s DREAM Sabbath at http://www2.journalnow.com/news/2011/sep/26/wsmain01-church-hears-speakers-for-dream-act-ar-1430798/.
DREAMer Lupe was among speakers Sunday, Sept. 25, at Meridian Street United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, Ind. Brought to the United States as a small child, she spoke English fluently by the third grade and excelled in her studies through eighth grade. Then she found out that she was undocumented.
“It was heartbreaking,” Lupe said. “I started freshman year. My grades were really bad. I didn’t think there was a point of trying.” She failed three classes. But during her sophomore year she got involved with the Latino Youth Collective, and when she learned about the DREAM Act, she began to have hope again.
“My goal is to become a social worker,” she said. “I love helping people. I don’t know how long it is going to take, but eventually I will get there. The DREAM Act would really help.”
She concluded, “Thank you for listening to me and for having a whole mass on this issue because it’s really important. It means a lot that you guys are actually taking your time to hear people’s stories.”
Meridian Street’s DREAM Sabbath service also featured a selection of Bible passages, with the reader noting, “Welcoming the stranger is the most repeated commandment in the Old Testament with the exception of the command to worship God.”
Guest preacher Bill Mefford, Director, Civil and Human Rights, United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society, Washington, D.C., warned against reducing people to such labels as “illegal.” Instead, we need to listen to people’s whole story – then engage in the story, he said.
Poverty and oppression are not the fault of the poor and oppressed, Mefford continued, they are the result of the unjust distribution of resources and abuse of power. He called for “political engagement on behalf of those who are vulnerable” and transformation of unjust systems like the immigration system.
In addition to hundreds of events, local faith leaders have hosted DREAM Sabbath press calls over the last week in several states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and North Carolina. Find links to recordings at http://supportimmigrationreform.org/blog/dreamsabbath.
DREAM Sabbath is being organized by the Interfaith Immigration Coalition – http://www.interfaithimmigration.org – in partnership with the United We Dream Network – http://unitedwedream.org – the grassroots movement of undocumented immigrant youth, and longtime DREAM Act champion and sponsor, U.S. Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL).
What you can do:
- Tell your members of Congress that you support the DREAM Act and urge them to work for a common sense, moral resolution to our nation’s broken immigration system.
- Visit www.churchworldservice.org/refugees and www.supportimmigrationreform.org regularly – and follow the links to our YouTube, Twitter and Facebook pages.
- While you are at www.churchworldservice.org/refugees, register to “Stay Informed.” Then sign up for CWS advocacy alerts focused on issues related to immigrants and refugees, and for other e-news bulletins of interest.
- Support your local refugee resettlement agency or denominational refugee and immigration program. Click “Donate to Assist Refugees” at www.churchworldservice.org/refugees to help CWS resettle refugees and meet the needs of people in protracted refugee situations around the world.
Central United Methodist Church
Fairmont, W. Va.
Rev. Mary Ellen Finegan
Sept. 25, 2011
Deut. 10:17-22; Matthew 25:31-46
Not only do ministers have the responsibility of “preaching” the Word of God, we also are charged with the responsibility of “teaching” the Word of God. What’s the difference?
Most preachers have a combination of both in any sermon.
Rev. Gregory Baker said that preaching “is trying to affect a person’s thinking by appealing to a person’s heart.
Teaching is trying to affect a person’s heart by appealing to his thinking. Teaching the Word of God provides a person with many different angles of understanding and gives a solid foundation, based on God’s Word, upon which behavior is directed.”
In our UMC, we have a Board of Church and Society, whose responsibility includes making sure that justice is done for all people. They have the difficult task of dealing with the fact that our human laws often clash with God’s laws, and when that happens, what should be the response of the church.
I have heard over the last few years the debate over the aliens, undocumented immigrants, whatever name we might have for them, who are in our country.
There are some Americans who do not want any undocumented aliens here; and there are those who see no problem with it, as long as they are law-abiding and not a drain on our economy.
This has been an educational challenge for me, too. I have struggled with this, both in my heart and mind, so I have been reading up on the Dream Act.
The Dream Act is an acronym for “The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors.” It began in 2001 with legislation introduced by Orin Hatch and Dick Durbin, and recently in March 2009, and again in 2010, it was reintroduced in the House and passed, but failed by just 8 votes in the Senate.
The Dream Act creates a path to citizenship for immigrant students who were brought to the United States early in their lives through no illegal action of their own. It allows young people who are exemplars in academics or military service, who have known no other life than as an American, a path to citizenship.
These young people, if sent back to their country of origin, would be considered “foreigners” there! These young people are American in culture and loyal to America, the only country they know and call home.
This bill has bi-partisan support. Even among Christians, it doesn’t seem to matter whether one is a Conservative Evangelical Christian or a Liberal Christian, there are those in both camps that support it and those in both camps that do not.
So this morning, I am going to do some teaching on this matter, because it is a matter of importance to our country, our cities, and to us as citizens. It is important that we see each other as equal in the eyes of God, who created all people in His image.
Now I am an American, and proud to be a citizen of the USA.
But, as a Christian, we must remember that our citizenship is not on this earth, we are aliens, just passing through. The Word of God teaches that “our citizenship is in heaven.”
So, in this respect, we ourselves should see ourselves as “aliens” or “strangers” right here where we live.
Did you hear on the news the other day about the family in California who were having a Bible Study and Prayer Meeting in their homes, and were told they could not do that any longer.
This family and those that were meeting in a private home, on which they paid taxes, must have felt like they were indeed “not at home” at all, but in a strange land where their rights were being ignored.
Our families who came here from other countries, found themselves suffering because of their alien status, and it took years for them to become accepted as part of American life.
We are not to forget where we came from, what God brought us through to get here. We are to put ourselves in the shoes of those “aliens,” “strangers,” who are among us today.
Here what the Word says in Deut. “God is not partial…God executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers (aliens), providing them with food and clothing.
You shall also love the stranger (alien) FOR YOU WERE STRANGERS IN THE LAND OF EGYPT.”
But, we are “fearful” of strangers and aliens and undocumented immigrants. After all, we have heard it said
- UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS BRING CRIME!
(Rev. Bowyer or Royce will answer this, and then I continue….)*
And, did you know that the Dream Act places limits of eligibility for conditional non-immigrant status by excluding anyone who has done the following:
- Has committed one felony or 3 misdemeanors
- Is likely to become a public charge
- Has engaged in voter fraud or unlawful voting
- Has committed marriage fraud
- Has abused a student visa
- Has engaged in persecution
- Poses a health risk
The Dream Act is not an amnesty bill, which opens the flood gates to everyone for any reason.
Rather, the Dream Act beneficiaries must
- Have proof of having arrived in the US before age 15
- Have proof of residence in US for at least 5 consecutive years since their date of arrival
- Have registered with the Selective Service if male.
- Be between the ages of 12 and 30 at the time of bill enactment.
- Have graduated from an American High School, or been admitted to college
- Be of good moral character.
So, if they meet all of these conditions, at the end of the 6 year period, they would be granted permanent residency, which would allow them to become a US citizen.
So, we see from these strict preconditions that any person eligible for citizenship through the Dream Act was brought to the U.S. at a young age, and has been living here for years.
Can we claim that these young people, who grew up among us, are criminals because their parents brought them into our country as children?
Can we say to them that they are accountable for the infractions or sins of their parents?
Ezekiel 18:19-20 gives the Word of the Lord:
“’Why is the son not punished for his father’s iniquity?’
Because he has always done what is just and right and has been careful to obey all my laws, therefore he shall live. It is the soul that sins, that shall die; a son shall not share a father’s guilt, nor a father his son’s.”
Now to be fair, Exodus 20:5 does say “I, the Lord your God am a jealous god. I punish the children for the sins of the fathers to the 3rd and 4th generation of THOSE WHO HATE ME (this is the key): But, I keep faith with thousands who love me and keep my commandments.”
Notice, this commandment says specifically that the punishment only extends to the children who hate the Lord, but for those who love the Lord God, the punishment is averted.
So any scriptures that speak of the sins of the father’s being visited upon their children, have to go back to the original commandment where God specifically gives the conditions.
Even if all this is true, we know that
- Immigrants take good jobs from Americans! Look at our unemployment rate. We need to keep our jobs for us Americans!!!
(Dick or Royce will answer this, and then I continue…)
- But these undocumented immigrants don’t pay taxes, but still get benefits!!!
(Dick or Royce will answer this, and then I continue)
Well, we Christians, who are aliens here, but citizens of heaven, who broke many of God’s laws here, but have been forgiven by God’s grace, are called upon, in God’s Word, to treat the alien (stranger) in our midst with kindness and to love them, just as the Lord loves them.
Ezekiel 47:21-23 tells us about the time when the Temple will be rebuilt and the land distributed among the 12 tribes of Israel. It speaks of the western side, which runs along the Great Sea, or the Mediterranean Sea, forming a boundary as far as a point opposite Lebohamath, about 100 miles north of Jerusalem.
Here this scripture: “This is the western side. You shall distribute this land among the tribes of Israel and assign it by lot as a patrimony (inheritance) for yourselves AND FOR ANY ALIENS LIVING IN YOUR MIDST WHO LEAVE SONS AMONG YOU. They shall be treated as native-born in Israel and with you shall receive a patrimony (inheritance) by lot among the tribes of Israel. You shall give the alien his patrimony with the tribe in which he is living. This is the very word of the Lord God.” (Ez. 47:21-23). Patrimony means, give them their inheritance and their lot of land, too.
Did you hear it? “For the aliens, strangers, living in our midst who leave sons among us.” They brought their children; or their children were born there. The alien children grew up with the Israelite children. And this became their homeland. These were to be treated as native-born. They were to be loved and accepted as part of the family of God.
They knew no other home. As far as the children were concerned, this was their home.
Let me share a personal story that was burned in my heart at the young age of 18. We were living in Indiana during the oil embargo, because there was no other place to get work.
While there, we rented a house that was very close to the immigrant workers who came each year to gather the harvest and get it to market. There were hundreds of them living in our small town of Palestine, Indiana.
This one particular family rented a trailer very close to us, and we got to know that family very well. They had several children, who also worked in the fields during the summer months.
They also had a little girl, around 2 years old, named Cecilia.
This one winter, the farmers were late getting the harvests in, due to rain. So, Juan and his family could not return to Mexico as early in the fall as they used to.
Winter hid early and hard that year, so Juan and his family stayed in Indiana for the whole winter. When spring came, the farmer asked him to help with the planting, too. Now Cecilia had turned 3 that summer.
And the family worked hard, hoping to make enough money to return to Mexico at the end of the harvest in September.
When it came time for them to go “home” to Mexico, they were packing their car and telling us goodbye, and hoped to see us again the next year.
We were hugging each other and the older kids were climbing into the car, when Cecilia ran up to me and threw her arms around my legs and held on for dear life.
I didn’t know at first just what she was doing. Was she just giving me a big hug goodbye?
Her father called for her, “Cecilia! Come on! We’re going home now.”
Cecilia began to cry and scream, “No! No! Me stay here home!”
Juan came up to Cecilia and took her up in his arms and said, “Oh no honey, we’re going back to Mexico, which is our home.”
Problem, in her young age, Cecilia had no memory of Mexico as being her home, so she cried and reached for me as they put her in the car, and as they were driving away, Cecilia was crying out, “No! Me stay Here Home!” The only home Cecilia knew was Palestine, Indiana, the United States of America.
The Israelites and we Americans are to love others as God loves all people, for we are all God’s children.
We need to remember Christ’s teaching from Matthew 25, which describes what it will be like in the final judgment.
All nations will be gathered before Christ Jesus, and he will separate people just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left hand.
He will say to the sheep: “Come, for you are blessed by my Father. Come and inherit the kingdom prepared for you!
For I was hungry and you gave me food; thirsty and you gave me drink; a stranger (alien) and you welcomed me….”
These sheep (all who are Christians in word and deed) welcomed the stranger: saw no distinction between one person and another, but were willing to love indiscriminately all God’s children.
Dared to take that risk even when others disagreed with their position.
The righteous asked Jesus, “When did we do this to YOU?”
Jesus answered and said, “Just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.”
Jesus judges us based on how we love one another; of how we do justice in this world for all people. He accepts what we have done for another–the hungry, thirsty, naked, the aliens (strangers) in our midst, just as if we did it for him personally.
Now the goats are on the left hand, and they represent the unrighteous. Jesus said to these, “You are cursed! Depart from me! I was hungry and you did not give me anything to eat; I was thirsty and you did not give me anything to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not welcome ME….”
They ask Jesus, “Lord when did we see YOU hungry or thirsty, or naked, or an alien (stranger)…. and did not take care of you?”
Jesus answers them, “Just as you did NOT do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. And these go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
In all we do as Christians, we are being judged as if we do it unto Christ himself. When we refuse to accept, to love, to defend the poor, the orphan, the widow, and the stranger (alien) in our midst, we are refusing Christ himself.
But when we love with the love of God those around us, even the undocumented immigrants, the strangers, the aliens, then receive the eternal blessings of God.
May God give bless us as we continue to do God’s will. Even as we struggle with the right thing to do in certain situations, may God give us understanding and wisdom. Amen.
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* PASTOR’S NOTE: Most of the info facts came from the Board of Church and Society or their links. The 10 myths were also supplemented from www.tolerance.org. Rev. Richard Bowyer sent me ideas from a PowerPoint he gives. Rev. Bowyer is a member of our church at Central, retired, and very active in the work of peace and justice.
As the sermon was preached, there were times when I announced a myth and Rev. Bowyer at Central and Royce Lyden at Trinity stood up to counter it from their seats in the choir, right behind me. We didn’t go through all of them, but these are the few I picked out because we knew people were concerned about them and believed them!
By Lindsay Holt, Immigration Advocacy Intern
Church World Service, May-August 2011
Most Christians, at least those I’ve met in the States, have grown up learning the Golden Rule: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27).
The story is played out in a dialogue between a teacher of religious law and Jesus. When the man asked for a way to follow God, Jesus told him to love his neighbor. The man asked, “Who is my neighbor?” To this, Jesus responded with the story of the Good Samaritan, in which a man beaten by robbers is ignored by his kinsmen and saved by a Samaritan, who was not only a stranger, but an enemy in his people’s eyes. The Samaritan was the neighbor Jesus calls us to be.
We share this world and the life we’re called to live with other people all around us. Near or far, these are our neighbors. We know this. Don’t we?
I grew up going to an amazing church. I was fed good spiritual teaching, guided by older Christians, and safe in a blessed environment. I was allowed to question and allowed to grow.
Then just last summer, I discovered another church – that met in my own church’s building. This small congregation almost entirely consisted of Egyptian Protestant Christians, the minority of the minority – most Christians in Egypt are Coptic, or traditional orthodox. This group included children and adults of all walks of life from Egypt, with varying degrees of English skills, trying to make it as immigrants in a country full of promises, suspicion, and ever-changing rules.
When I met them, I was so surprised. No one had told me about this church. I didn’t think most of the laypeople even knew they existed. I began to attend. The church had translation equipment, in case any English-speakers came to their service. The first time I showed up, however, they couldn’t find any that worked – it had been so long since anyone had bothered checking in with the Arabic-speaking congregation.
As much as I love my church, I am disappointed with the kind of attention we give (or don’t give) to “foreigners”. I’ve seen members of my own congregation shy away from the topic of immigrants, glancing uncertainly at an older Egyptian couple and their granddaughter as she chattered away in a different language. There is a culture of exclusion that occurs in any group. Its presence in the church is not surprising – it’s just wrong. It needs to change.
It is time to alter the role of the church in discussing the lives of our neighbors. “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of my brothers and sisters, you did for me,” says Jesus. Immigrants have a special place in God’s heart. As He told the Israelites, “Do not mistreat or oppress an immigrant, for you were once immigrants in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:21). If immigrants are thought of as numbers instead of brothers and sisters of God, then we are not living as examples of Christ.
To break bad habits, we need to create new ones. Talk with people. Treat different people with respect, as if they were made by a living, loving God. Reach out when you see someone lost or alone, instead of shunning them. Heal wounds. Ask forgiveness. And of course, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for in doing so people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2).
Jesus taught us to follow his example and to love, radical and unashamed. It’s a challenge because the reward is worth it. It’s an adventure: it means defying cultural trends of exclusion, self-centeredness, apathy, and that all-important “pursuit of happiness” that we tend to desperately cling to as a prosperity doctrine or a comfort-based religion of its own.
Meeting outcasts at wells and healing the socially perceived “unclean” takes courage and strength. It’s not enough to memorize the Golden Rule – we have to live it. How are you and your church living out the Golden Rule?
DREAM Students at Rally for Immigration Reform, photo by Carol Fouke-Mpoyo/CWS
Join faith communities around the country who’ll be holding DREAM Sabbath events during the period Sept. 16-Oct. 9, 2011. The events will seek to contribute to advocacy for the DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented young adults brought to the United States as children who complete two years of college or military service.
During DREAM Sabbath 2011, communities of faith will lift up the lives of DREAM students in their prayers, readings, reflection and education during at least one Sabbath service as a way to help educate and spread awareness of DREAM students and their hopes to attain full recognition of their contributions to our communities. In many cases, local DREAM students will attend and speak.
In December of 2010, the DREAM Act came just five votes short of passing. Faith communities around the country were deeply disappointed when the Senate failed to invoke cloture on the DREAM Act, but remain committed to the issue.
DREAM Act Gaining Momentum
On June 28, the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security held a hearing on the DREAM Act, chaired by Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), who has championed this legislation from the beginning. For the first time in years, public support for positive immigration reform surpassed opposition. In many ways, momentum is building!
DREAM Sabbath Media-Faith Leader Calls
During DREAM Sabbath, faith leaders will meet with media in conference calls in nine states. MP3s of the calls will be linked here as they become available.
Ohio September 16, 2011
Pennsylvania September 20, 2011
Florida September 21, 2011
North Carolina September 23, 2011
Get Involved
Click here for more information, to sign up, and to download a DREAM Sabbath 2011 packet to help support your participation. The packet includes theological reflections, sermon starters, stories of DREAM students, bulletin inserts, myths and facts about the DREAM Act, and a petition that people can sign to support the DREAM Act.
Your participation will help spread understanding of the DREAM Act and build broad support for DREAM students!
