Immigrants from Mexico and Central America are being called animals, painted with a broad brush as criminals, by our president. Muslim is made synonymous with terrorist. This instills fear. Fear is the point; fear rallies voters. Labeling immigrants dangerous criminals is a quick and false solution to the social and economic problems our country faces. That is scapegoating. Let’s name it as scapegoating. Blame an innocent “other” to unify people around hate and fear. Fear and scapegoating are at the heart of our post-9/11 immigration policy; they didn’t start with the current administration. And our laws have long allowed brutal treatment of immigrants.
May we weep in repentance for the soul of our country. May we bear words of comfort to those in fear, and words of challenge to those who scapegoat and hate. May we truly trust that love wins in the end, and call upon that love to help us make our immigrant neighbors welcome. May we see in immigrants the face of Jesus.
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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ
June 24, 2018
Bad News, Good News (about Immigration)
Rom. 12:9-21 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
The Good News of Jesus Christ is a jewel with many facets. At its heart is the reality that we can love because we first were loved. We can name what is broken in us and invite healing and transformation, because we all are broken and we have been invited into healing and transformation. We can face terror and heartbreak and not lose heart, because at the heart of the universe is love, and love wins in the end. If love hasn’t won, it’s not yet the end.
Now for the bad news. On Thursday June 14, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions used a bible verse to justify the separation of young children from their parents at the border. The verse he chose is immediately after the portion we read. Those would appear to condemn the actions he was trying to justify. He said, "I would cite to you the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order."
The first verses of Romans 13 have been cited throughout the ages to short-circuit Christian resistance to every unjust law or regime you can imagine. Romans 13 especially popular among those defending the Fugitive Slave Act in the run-up to the Civil War. It was used repeatedly in the 1930’s to justify Hitler. And it was used by defenders of South African Apartheid and of our own Jim Crow segregation.
Sessions’s suggestion that Romans 13 represents some sort of absolute, inflexible rule for the universe has been refuted by religious authorities again and again. Augustine said that “an unjust law is no law at all.” In Romans 13, Paul was pretty clearly rejecting a significant view among Christians of his day: that civil authorities deserved no obedience in any circumstance.
Even if taken out of context, in Romans 13 Paul is the shepherd telling the sheep that just as they must love their enemies, they must also recognize that the wolf is part of God’s world. In today’s context, Jeff Sessions is that wolf, and no matter what you think of his policies, he is not entitled to quote the shepherd on his own behalf. Maybe those desperate women and men at the border should suck it up and accept their terrible lot in life and defer to Jeff Sessions’ idolatrous grasp on evil laws. But for the sake of all that is holy, don’t quote the Bible to make the Trump administration’s policies towards immigrant families sound godly. (Paraphrasing and quoting Ed Kilgore, “No, Jeff Session, separating Kids from their Parents isn’t ‘Biblical.’” New York Magazine, June 14 2018)
Bible and religion are justifying cruel and bullying behavior in the public sphere regularly these days. That is bad news. People hearing it conclude that the Christian religion is bad news.
If you take the bible literally as a guide to behavior, you will get mixed messages about a lot of things, and truly scary messages about a few things, with one notable exception. As I read it, the bible is crystal clear, and speaks in one voice, about how to treat immigrants and refugees. Leviticus 19:33-34 (which I read to the Brea City Council): When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. Matthew 25:35: I was a stranger and you welcomed me. And many more. The most compelling bible passage for me is the Good Samaritan, a story about a foreigner going out of his way and spending lots of money to help aforeigner who probably considered him a lesser breed of human.
Our call as followers of Jesus is clear. Welcome the stranger, the immigrant and refugee. Not just when it’s convenient. The number of people seeking safety and opportunity in the United States is overwhelming. So we can acknowledge the tension between the call of our faith and what is easy or practical in public policy. But if our faith is real, we don’t abandon it because it’s “impractical.”
America’s identity has been as a land of immigrants, a land of opportunity. That identity always had some cracks in it; ask African-Americans how they got here, or Native Americans about their child separation, among other crimes. But until recently, we were the country that took in more refugees and more legal immigrants than any other. Emma Lazarus’ words for the Statue of Liberty are so radiant because they mark a nation’s aspirations that are in tune with the Good News of Jesus.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
14% of the American population is foreign-born. About 3% are undocumented. In Orange County over 30% of us are foreign-born. 99% of us are the descendants of immigrants. Religion aside, how dare we slam shut that golden door after we have walked through it? But our religion is not an aside. “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”
The architects of this recent child separation sought to deter refugees by being stunningly cruel, and advertising being cruel. That’s new. But those “child cages” are not new. They were built during the Obama administration to temporarily house unaccompanied teenagers, who started coming to our borders in large numbers in 2014. Those children were fleeing horrific violence and economic collapse in Central America. They still are.
The Department of Homeland Security, DHS, which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, was created in response to 9/11/2001. 9/11 is when we began to fear immigrants. Back in 2003 the DHS stated, and I quote, “Moving toward a 100% rate of removal for all removable aliens is critical to allow the ICE to provide the level of immigration enforcement necessary to keep America secure.” Did you catch that? They are saying that anyundocumented people are a danger. That’s called scapegoating. Blame all your problems on some innocent goat, or people, and then drive them away to solve your problems.
All removable aliens. 11.7 million people, including about 2 million Dreamers, people who arrived as children, many of whom know no other country, and have no way to become legal residents, and 5 million more people who have been here for more than five years and are parents of American children, and also have no way to become legal residents.
Jailing immigrants started back in the 1990’s. Under the Bush and Obama administrations after 9/11, detention camps were built and filled, but the work was being done quietly. I overlooked it; did you? Some of the pictures of youth in cages that we’ve been seeing date to 2016. Stories of infant separation date to 2012 and before. I overlooked it; did you? Immigrants did not overlook it. They have lived in fear since 9/11, though that fear has heighted under the current adminstration. ICE wasted no time in taking advantage of a more supportive administration to tighten the screws.
At the beginning of this year, a staggering 800,000 people awaited a hearing on their immigration status. There are 300 judges to hear those 800,000 cases. Over 40,000 people awaiting hearings were in detention at any given time in 2017, including families with small children. Detention is a nice word for jail. We can guess the numbers are much larger recently since “zero tolerance” means automatic detention at the border instead of escort back to Mexico. Tent cities? You bet. And billions of dollars.
Since 9/11, immigrants have been jailed all over the country, in tent cities, warehouses, for-profit prisons, and the James Musick jail in Irvine. My friend Betty Guthrie works with an organization called Friends of Orange County Detainees. She told me that people with legitimate cases for political asylum go to jail when they present themselves at our border. Family separation happens every day when parents are jailed for being undocumented. Their children go to family, friends, or the foster care system; nowadays family and friends are often afraid to take them in for fear of being jailed themselves. Detainees have no right to legal representation, even if they claim asylum from danger in their country of origin. No legal representation. This is because deportation and asylum hearings are not criminal hearings; they are civil matters; misdemeanors.
They are civil because undocumented entry into the U.S. is not a crime. Let me say that again. Undocumented entry into the U.S. is not a crime! Asylum seekers are jailed for months or years because of a civil violation. If they have around six thousand dollars and the knowledge required, asylum seekers can get released on bond. But if they challenge their case, they have to stay in jail during the challenge, which can take years. Two-thirds of immigrants have no legal representation for their hearing. People without representation are ten times as likely to be deported as those who have representation. People with money have a decent shot of eventually getting legal status; poor people almost never do.
If you have anything on your record and you have so much as a parking ticket and your skin is brown, forget it. Not showing up to a scheduled hearing. A teenage indiscretion. None of us here have those I’m sure. A parking ticket. Now you’re really a criminal.
Last July I met the family of Liliana Cruz Mendez. She was a resident of Virginia for more than ten years. In 2013 she was pulled over for a broken headlight, and that gave her a “criminal record.” She was granted a stay of deportation. In July of 2017 she went to her annual ICE check-in, and from there straight to detention in another city without time to phone her family. I prayed with Liliana’s husband and two children. It was heartbreaking. Despite rallies and great news coverage for her case, and the governor of Virgina pardoning her broken headlight ticket, she was deported to El Salvador within days. But the laws that allowed it to happen are also evil. Liliana won’t be eligible to even apply to legally immigrate back to the U.S. for ten years, when her son will be 20, and her daughter 14.
Immigrants from Mexico and Central America are being called animals, painted with a broad brush as criminals, by our president. Muslim is made synonymous with terrorist. This instills fear. Fear is the point; fear rallies voters. Labeling immigrants dangerous criminals is a quick and false solution to the social and economic problems our country faces. That is scapegoating. Let’s name it as scapegoating. Blame an innocent “other” to unify people around hate and fear. Fear and scapegoating are at the heart of our post-9/11 immigration policy; they didn’t start with the current administration. And our laws have long allowed brutal treatment of immigrants.
That is a whole lot of bad news. Ironically, good news begins to happen when we, who have been blessed by this country’s welcome, begin to taste the suffering of our immigrant brothers and sisters. We must see and feel and name what is broken before it can be healed and transformed.
The need is truly overwhelming. We may not be able to be as compassionate a country as our faith tells us to be, but we can do so much better. In fact, we might want to get good at welcoming refugees because climate change is coming. In case we are whining about being overburdened, contemplate the fate of Lebanon. That country of four million has taken in one million Syrian refugees.
So where’s the Good News? Good news happens when we name our unjust immigration laws and cruel policies for what they are, scapegoating, and when we advocate for justice. Like: Don’t imprison immigrants, and don’t make minor infractions into criminal charges. Good news happens when Friends of Orange County Detainees visit asylum seekers in the Musick jail so they know they are not forgotten, and when angel donors raise thousands of dollars to release an asylum seeker on bail, or even give enough money for a parent to phone a child from jail. Good news happens when volunteers host legal clinics for immigrants. Good news happens when we as Christians speak out to counter the twisted narrative of fear and scapegoating that has overtaken our country, when we speak out for Jesus’ law of love, and his imperative to welcome the stranger.
Are you scared of America being overrun by immigrants? Well here we all are! It happened a long time ago.
I can’t put a bow on this sermon; the topic of immigration is big and confusing and messy, but I can give you a lot of footnotes. May we weep in repentance for the soul of our country. May we bear words of comfort to those in fear, and words of challenge to those who scapegoat and hate. May we truly trust that love wins in the end, and call upon that love to help us make our immigrant neighbors welcome. May we see in immigrants the face of Jesus. Amen.
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