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Monday, August 4, 2014

#421: Would Jesus Send Them Back?

As tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors flood across our southern border, Americans face a growing moral challenge.  And this challenge touches on both our national character and on  Catholic identity itself. 


When Massachusetts Governor Duval Patrick offered temporary shelter to 1000 immigrant youths, he unleashed a firestorm of protest in supposedly “liberal” Massachusetts.  Officials of the towns where Patrick proposed sending children for shelter said that their communities should not be burdened with the responsibility, explaining “we need to take care of our own.”

When Patrick compared the current crisis to the case in World War II, when a ship carrying Jewish families was refused entry to the United States (and those families mostly ended up in NAZI death camps), people howled that the comparison was inappropriate.  Letters to the editor argued that we should “send them back where they belong.” And on Saturday, July 26, thousands cheered a “Stop the Invasion” rally at the Massachusetts State House, chanting “Send them home!  Send them home!”

For many, it seems, these children are simply “illegals,” case closed.  As one rally speaker explained:

Our government sees no difference between law-abiding, freedom-loving, taxpaying citizens and lawbreaking aliens.

All this makes me fear that, as the ghost of nativism rears its ugly head, our national character might be recoiling from generations of social progress.

The fact is that hospitality to migrants in trouble is a longstanding tradition in this country.  I recall my third grade teacher announcing the arrival of Hungarian children in her hometown.  Refugees from the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, they came to the U.S., often unaccompanied, because it was not safe to stay home.

To an 8 year old like me, this announcement contained three life lessons.  First, the world beyond our borders was sometimes dangerous.  Second, our nation is seen to be--and was--a place of safe haven for “refugees” (which was a new word to me!).  Third, Americans by nature sacrifice for those who need our help.

Four decades later, my church work repeated these lessons, when some of my client parishes sponsored summer programs (offering housing, host families, recreation, and health care) for “Chernobyl Children.” These minors were fleeing the unsafe milk, crops, and spaces contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear explosion.  Despite presenting itself as a temporary relief program, “Chernobyl Children” naturally encouraged these young Russian guests to think of America as a desirable permanent home.

Catholic social teaching clearly calls for this kind of “open arms” embrace for refugees.  In fact, our tradition holds that people have a human right to migrate if their current location makes them threatened, endangered, oppressed, or destitute.

This certainly applies to at least some of the minors now flooding into the U.S..  And Catholic leaders are championing their cause. John Allen reports that Pope Francis himself sent a clear message to last week’s crisis summit in Mexico City:

Such a humanitarian emergency demands as the first urgent measure that these minors be protected and duly taken in. [They] cross the border under extreme conditions, in pursuit of a hope that in most cases turns out to be vain. (http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2014/08/02/immigration-takes-its-place-pro-life-issue-for-catholic-church-leaders/LwwqcL3WlOhyWqMdiWtgqL/story.html)

The pope’s message echoes the consistent position of U.S. bishops, especially those from the areas most affected by border crossings.

Bishop Eusebio L Elizondo of Seattle heads the U.S. Bishops Migration Committee.  In a July 17 letter to members of Congress, he spoke against Republican efforts to roll back the legal protections for migrating children, saying “this vulnerable group is fleeing violence from organized criminal networks.”

This claim was verified by Richard Jones of Catholic Relief Services, who said:

We have seen the homicide rates grow, forced displacement increase and Mexican and Colombian drug cartels battle over who controls the moves through Central America…In El Salvador and Honduras, there are more gang members than police.

David Fiske, president of Marygrove College (a Catholic school in Detroit), issued a statement calling the situation a “classic” refugee crisis typical of “war-torn regions in which unprotected civilians will take extreme measures to reach a safe haven.”

That safe haven is, of course, the United States--yet millions of Americans (including, I fear, American Catholics) reject this historical badge of humanitarian honor in favor of “you don’t belong here” and “send them back.”

How striking is the difference between this attitude and the way Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez spoke of such migrants at a July 20 Mass held to focus attention on the crisis:

We celebrate the immigrant spirit that gives life to our great country and our great city.  As we all know, this land was built by the blood and sacrifice and the vision of missionaries and immigrants from every race of language and every nation.  Today we give thanks for all those men and women who left the places where they were born--to bring their faith and values, their talents and gifts--to create a new life and the new world here in America.  We thank God also for the spirit of our new immigrants--those  joining us every day to be our neighbors and friends and family members.

In addition to praising the migrant spirit itself, Gomez used the occasion to spell out the link between immigration policy--especially the treatment of refugees--and Catholic identity itself:

Pope Francis is right, and in the face of this emergency, our first duty must be to protect these children.  My brothers and sisters, what we are doing for these children as a church--it’s not about politics.  We all know that.  It’s about who we are as Catholics… We don’t do it because we are “social workers” or “nice people.” We do it because we are being faithful to our identity and duty as Catholics.  We do it because Jesus calls us to do it.

As a Catholic, I’m proud of my tradition’s strong and clear message that protecting migrants’ human rights reflects true gospel values.  As an American, I am troubled and even ashamed that so many citizens cannot see beyond the red tape of customs regulations and our newfangled and arbitrary immigration quotas.

Once we acknowledge that migrants in need are exercising their human rights, any talk of them as “illegals” becomes nit-picking.  It is like jailing a poor man for fishing to feed his family, just because he could not afford a fishing license.  The law is there to serve people, and for our common good.  Laws that violate a human right are unjust.  And, as Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote, unjust laws are not really laws at all--they are a form of violence.

For me, this begs two questions.

First, why are so many Americans afraid to embrace our longstanding tradition of humanitarian hospitality?  After all, any talk of who “belongs here” is just ignorant.  If “belongs here” means “was always here,” then nobody belongs here.  Even Native Americans migrated here from Asia, and that was long before Europeans and Africans migrated here, and that was long before Asians and South Americans migrated here.  Originally, all our ancestors “belonged” somewhere else--not here.

But millions of Americans continue to ignore this, or deny this, or just shut their eyes.  They prefer to believe that they have a “right” to be here while others do not--and they hide behind the law to avoid the truth.  What are they afraid of?

Second, I wonder about American Catholics.  Does ours faith impact our attitude?  Do U.S. Catholics know the Church’s position on migration and refugees?  Do we know what our traditional beliefs mean?  Do we know our own Catholic identity? 

Or are there millions of Catholics who, if they were asked “What would Jesus do?” would answer: “Jesus would send them home!”?

Pope Francis has called this response the “globalization of indifference,” and my worry is that too many Catholics believe such indifference is compatible with our faith.  I hope I am wrong.

  © Bernard   F. Swain PhD 2013

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