I’ve read defenses made by some United States citizens arguing that, if migrants know they will face harsh treatment in this country, then they should not bother coming to the U.S. for asylum.
What gross privilege we have to assume that migrants have other options of where to turn when desperately fleeing for safety. If someone held a gun to my head, and I had the opportunity to run away, I would… even while knowing I could be shot while trying to escape. This is quite literally the nightmare in which many Central Americans, particularly women, find themselves. Yes, the threat of ICE incarceration and abuse looms as a likely reality, but at least in the United States there lies some possibility of life without the constant fears of mutilation, kidnapping, and murder inescapable in various countries south of the US border.
Regardless of differences in country of origin or social status, humans share many of the same basic desires: safety for those we love, education for our children, or satisfying employment.
Such motivations are shared by staunch anti-immigrant US citizens as well as by people walking across miles of desert to run the metaphorical gauntlet of the US immigration system. I pain at the thought of us throwing out the dignity of individual people by not investing the emotional effort to empathize over the intense suffering and fear that would push a family to make the treacherous and uncertain journey of migration.
No doubt those presenting themselves at the border have heard of the realities facing asylum- and refugee-seekers in the US. Yet imagine yourself, for example, as a Honduran mother surrounded regularly by over 380 annual murders of women around you. Consider what protecting your family might look like when your neighbor’s daughter, 14-year old Katherine Carranza, was shot 7 times in the head while walking near church when she refused to let gang members take her. In such desperate conditions, the dangerously thin chance of receiving asylum status in the US may be worth aiming for when compared with certain violence and quite possible death.
Those of us living in relative security and stability have no right to condemn parents or individuals for making the harrowing decision to seek life in the United States. Part of our call is to humanize our view of the “other” by recognizing that we hold in common with many migrants similar fears, values, and hopes for the ones we love.
Today’s action idea: I’m meditating on this prayer as I walk today. I invite you to take time to pray the following with me, as we learn to see ourselves and Christ in the most outcast and disregarded of society:
You are the God who bears the brunt of the question, “Why didn’t you stay where you belong?”
You feel the red-faced embarrassment when we hear, “Keep your distance, you foreigner, with your different-colored skin and your strange-sounding speech, with your culture, food, religion, and clothing that are inferior to my own.”
You are the God who sits along side of us who work in sweatshops, with our bloodshot eyes and aching fingers squinting under the soul-less glare of a fluorescent light.
You are the God who rises early in the morning with us as we go to harvest fresh vegetables and fruits picked with fingers stained by the pesticides and fungicides that penetrate our skin.
You are the God who stands with us in the chill of the morning in the parking lot at Home Depot, with anxious stomachs hoping that we too would be picked to work just for that one day.
Loving God, as we stand before you today, help us to remember that when we speak of immigrants and refugees, we speak of Christ.
Hear our prayers for necessary, just, and comprehensive immigration reform.
Make us strong in the work for immigrant justice and remind us that our work is no easier than the everyday work of our immigrant sisters and brothers.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
(adapted from Justiceforimmigrants.org by Fr. Jon Pedigo)
Manzanar to Mesa Verde 