Migration - Rev. Sandra Fees

Nov. 6, 2011

A little over a week ago the Reading Eagle ran a letter to the editor with the header “Shoot Illegals.” The author described this as a “simple solution” to the immigration problem. His remedy: have border patrol shoot anyone who returns to the United States after being sent back where they came from. After reading the letter, I called the opinion editor to express my concern that the paper published the letter. He suggested I write a letter to the editor.

I told him that was unacceptable, that the paper should not be in the business of publishing offensive opinions that incite violence and hatred - something that’s actually against their own policy. He seemed unmoved. I called the paper’s Editor and left an impassioned message. He was in an all-day meeting but had the managing editor return my call to say the editors had taken another look at the letter and agreed that publishing it served no purpose.

Since then, the paper has published two responses. I’m sure some of you felt relieved to read the original letter characterized as foolish and unbelievable. While I agree with these opinions, the greater issue is how our paper makes decisions, how we conduct public discourse, and how we bring ethics into public life, and also, of course, how we treat immigrants. One thing I want to lift up is a statement the editor made to me in an email. He said of having published the original letter: “What we gain is experience that will help us make better choices.” Surely, as a nation, we need to be making better choices.

I am grateful to be facilitating a six-week educational curriculum, “Immigration as a Moral Issue,” that is helping me and other members of this congregation figure out how to do that. It was developed by our religious tradition. This coming week is the last workshop. So far, we’ve studied the terminology – illegal, alien, undocumented, migrant, and so on – and the path to citizenship. We’ve reflected on our personal immigration histories.

We’ve gotten a primer on our country’s history of immigration, including Mexican-U.S. history. Most of you know from history class that the U.S. forcibly annexed land that once belonged to Mexico as part of a U.S. expansionist enterprise. What that means is that Mexicans lived on land in the Southwest long before it ever became the United States.

What you may not know is the reason we didn’t annex Mexico entirely. It was thanks largely to Senator John Calhoun, a Unitarian. But unfortunately, his reasons were not noble. He argued against our associating ourselves as equals and fellow citizens with Mexicans who are Indians and said it would be “fatal to our institutions.”

In the course, we’ve also learned about economic pressures and border patrol issues. We’ve learned just how broken the immigration system really is and the tragic results. The unwieldy path to citizenship is the beginning of the problem. Even immigrants who marry U.S. citizens can find themselves waiting for years to become naturalized. For many others, without a U.S. relative or a priority status, achieving legal status isn’t even an option.

The flawed process has resulted in the separation of families, and the border wall has compounded the difficulties for families seeking to be reunited. The stories of immigrants desperate to reunite with their families abound. I want to share just one story, that of 14-year old Josseline Hernández, from El Salvador. Josseline was responsible for bringing her 10 year old brother safely to their mother in Los Angeles. They were traveling the migrant trail with adults they knew from home, in the hands of a professional coyote, a smuggler paid thousands of dollars to bring them across the international line.

The days reached 50 degrees but at night temperatures plummeted to freezing. Seven miles north of the Mexican border in the Sonoran Desert, just days away from her mother, Josseline began to lag behind. She felt sick and started vomiting. The group was on a schedule with a ride to catch and the possibility of being caught if they delayed. The coyote insisted on a fast pace through the desert.  She was too weak to go on. The coyote decided to leave the young girl behind, alone in the desert. Her brother wanted to stay with her, but she insisted he go. On her first night alone, the temperature dropped to 29 degrees. By the weekend, her brother arrived safely in Los Angeles. 

Three weeks later, Dan Millis, a former high school teacher, volunteering with No More Deaths, a Tucson group determined to stop the deaths of migrants in the Arizona deserts, was lugging water jugs and other goodies into Cedar Canyon. He had heard about Josseline. When the girl’s little brother arrived in Los Angeles without her, her distraught family had contacted a human rights organization in Tucson.

When Dan spotted a pair of bright green shoes, he figured someone must be nearby. He found her “lying on a rock, under a bush, her hands raised up near her head, her feet plunged into water that had pooled in a cavity in the stone.” Dan phoned the sheriff and he and another volunteer retraced their steps marking down the route so the police could later make their way back to the canyon. Dan and the volunteer then returned to the canyon joining two volunteers who had stayed behind with the body. They held a vigil while waiting for the authorities to arrive (The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories from the Arizona Borderlands, Margaret Regan).

While immigration isn’t only a border issue, Arizona has become ground zero for immigration since the year 2000. Border crossing deaths like Josseline’s are among the most tragic outcomes of border militarization. Not only are undocumented immigrants impacted but so too are whole communities that live in fear of raids and other acts of violence. Corruption runs rampant.

Those immigrants who do make it here – whether documented or undocumented – often face serious workplace abuses. Those who are undocumented, have little recourse to demand workplace safety or even to ensure they are paid. Those who are documented have few choices, being required to work for the agency that sponsored their green card (“Don’t Be Fooled: Immigration is NOT the Real Problem,” Edith Rasell, Nov. 2007, ucc.org/justice/immigration/immigrant-workers.html).

Globalization, which was purported to benefit the poor, has compounded the problems. It has driven a decline in wages and an acceleration of worldwide poverty and inequality (“Does Globalization Help the Poor?” Jerry Mander, Debi Baker, and David Korten, 2001, International Forum on Globalization, thirdworldtraveler.com).

The effort to criminalize undocumented immigrants is another facet of this story. Being here without the proper documentation is a civil offense, not a criminal one. Yet immigrants have become the fastest growing segment of the prison population. It turns out that locking up undocumented immigrants is lucrative, so lucrative it has saved a failing corrections industry (“This Alien Life: Privatized Prisons for Immigrants,” Deepa Fernandes, Feb. 2007, corpwatch.org). And not by accident. It was the private prison industry that served as the catalyst for SB1070, the stringent Arizona anti-immigration law.

The more I learn about our immigration system, the more I feel a kind of anger and frustration. The more I learn, the more my heart breaks. The more I learn the more I see that we have a long way to go in terms of gaining the knowledge and experience that will help us make better choices. Immigration is a moral and ethical issue. It’s a human rights issue, and we need immigration reform as a humanitarian measure. Peter Morales, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, says,

As a religious people who affirm human compassion, advocate for human rights, and seek justice, we must never make the mistake of confusing a legal right with a moral right. The forced removal of Native Americans from their land and onto reservations was legal. The importation and sale of African slaves was legal. South African apartheid was legal. The confiscation of the property of Jews at the beginning of the Nazi regime was legal. The Spanish Inquisition was legal. Crucifying Jesus was legal. Burning Michael Servetus at the stake for his Unitarian theology was legal. The powerful have always used the legal system to oppress the powerless.

It is true that as citizens we should respect the rule of law. More importantly, though, our duty is to create laws founded on our highest sense of justice, equity, and compassion. Loud voices urge us to choose fear, denial, reactionary nationalism, and racism. We must resist and choose the better way urged by every major religious tradition. We must choose the path of compassion and hope. We must choose a path that is founded on the recognition that we are connected, that we are all in this together (excerpt from A People So Bold).

The religions of the world consistently call upon us to treat one another with compassion, with kindness, with respect. Religion asks, who is my neighbor? Who is my sister, my brother, my kin? To whom am I responsible? Rabbi and prophet, Jesus, said:

for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. … Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me (Matthew 25:35-40).

The Koran tells us that we should “do good to…those in need, neighbors who are near, neighbors who are strangers, the companion by your side, the wayfarer that you meet” (4:36). The Hindu Upanishad tells us: “The guest is a representative of God” (Taitiriya 1.11.2).

Our UU faith tradition calls upon us to respect each person’s worth and dignity and to promote justice, equity, and compassion in our human relations. We are called to affirm the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. We are called to recognize that we are all connected.

The Unitarian Universalist Association embraced “Immigration as a Moral Issue” and as one of its priority concerns when SB1070 was being passed. Around that time, we became acutely aware that our General Assembly in 2012 would be held in Phoenix. General Assembly is our annual gathering of thousands of Unitarian Universalists from congregations throughout the nation as well as from Canada and other countries.

Many of us began to question the ethics of our being in Arizona. Many did not want to support a local economy that was striving to criminalize undocumented immigrants. We eventually decided to go to Phoenix next year in order to support UU colleagues, UU congregations, and immigrant-friendly businesses and agencies - and to make immigration the centerpiece of the gathering.

The primary emphasis will be on educating ourselves.  I have some very strong opinions about immigration. I suspect you do too. One of the things I have come to see is that I need the knowledge and experience to support those opinions, to become more conversant about the complexities of immigration, and to discern where we as religious people can have a key role in this humanitarian concern. I look forward to being on the ground in Arizona in June. I hope some of you will join me.

My commitment is to educate myself and to encourage this congregation to educate itself on this issue. My hope is that our knowledge and experience as individuals, as a congregation, and ultimately as a nation will lead us to make better choices. My prayer is for those who are being hurt by our broken system.