Week 2- Progressive Christianity and Immigration- Ian Lawton

I come to this issue as a legal immigrant in this country.

Let me describe to you the immigration process as my family has experienced it. We arrived with temporary visas. It took two years to gain permanent, legal status or a Green Card. After this long, difficult and expensive process, we are now described as “legal resident aliens.”

Even the fact that it is called alien is significant in this regard. Our experience in this country, and we come from Australia which is so similar, we come with the English language, with the support of a large community, with the benefit of lawyers who have helped the process along, is that it is a tough process.

How hard must it be for someone without English as a first language, without support structures, coming from a completely different culture, to arrive and deal with the legal and administrative challenges, not to mention the human challenge of adjusting to a new culture?

You might expect that legal immigrants have all the same legal rights as naturalized citizens, but in fact that is not true. As a legal immigrant, I cannot vote, either locally or nationally, and that is a huge issue. The second issue is that I don’t have access to all jobs in this country. I can enlist in the military, but cannot serve in the police force or fire brigade. I could be a Senator, Congress Person, even Governor of a State, but not the Vice President or President of the country. Where’s the logic in that?

I can’t sponsor other family members to come to this country so that they might also be legal immigrants. For many years I won’t have access to all the social benefits of this country’s government structures.

But then, maybe the most significant of all is that if a legal immigrant commits a crime, even a non violent misdemeanor, not only do they serve the time and the penalty in this country, but when they finish serving time, they could very well be deported. A law that came in the 1990’s has put into law the reality that many people, half a million people in the last ten years, have been deported after serving their time for a crime in this country, many of which were minor crimes.

There is one case of a man from Haiti who immigrated in 1970 to America. He enlisted in the military, served four years in the Marines, after which he had children, three decades in this country, children who are naturalized Americans, grandchildren as well. In the 1990’s this man was convicted of a very small time use of cocaine. He served time in prison here, at the end of which he was deported back to Haiti.

That’s the most significant of all the differences of a legal immigrant to a citizen of this country, and it takes at least five years from the time you become a legal immigrant to the time you might be recognized as a citizen of this country.

This means that legal immigrants spend at least seven years in this country without the right to vote, without the right to sponsor other family members to come as legal immigrants, and with unequal rights under the law. That’s the unjust reality.

I believe that if we address the issue of legal immigration, making it easier, more just, and more sensitive to the needs of those who are coming to this country, we might lessen the amount of illegal immigration. If it were easier to come here, as well as a more favorable experience, we might have fewer people coming as illegal immigrants.

Its time to get creative, and the Hebrew tradition tells some wonderful stories of creative resistance to oppression.

The whole Hebrew story is one of immigration; exile and return.

The Hebrew people were immigrants in Egypt. They fled poverty and oppression. And they lived in Egypt fearing for their lives as people who didn’t have equal rights under the law.

They became so numerous that the Egyptians were worried that they would be outnumbered, so the King issued an edict that every firstborn boy would be killed. Girls would survive.

There is a beautiful story in Exodus 1 about two Hebrew midwives who were ordered by the Egyptian court to ensure that any firstborn males would be killed at birth. The Hebrew midwives suffered a deep crisis of conscious. When it came the first time that a Hebrew boy was born, and they let the boy live, they were called up to the court to explain.

What they said was brilliant. Their answer to the court was that Hebrew women are strong, so strong that they give birth without midwives. They give birth before the midwives even get there. And with a brilliant piece of mother wit, they were able to outwit the Egyptian power elite.

One of the boys was Moses. Moses was put in a basket and placed in the river, while his sister Miriam watched on. And when the Egyptian princess found the Hebrew baby and decided to make him her own, Miriam went to her and said, “I have the perfect woman to care for this child!” and introduced the princess to the mother of Moses. Again, creative problem solving!

The Hebrew tradition includes story after story of creative resistance, of people, women especially, who acted wisely, creatively, and courageously; radical hospitality in the face of enormous odds. And so an Egyptian princess collaborated with a Hebrew mother and what was set in process was a long history of people crossing boundaries, across race, and tribe to work together to create a more inclusive world. The Egyptian princess offered sanctuary to Moses. She refused to be trapped inside an identity that perceived the Hebrew child as someone to be killed to preserve her national identity.

There are some important parallels between what is happening in this country now and what happened in the ancient near east.

Hebrews arrived as economic and political refugees. They soon lost their land tenure and regressed into slavery, quickly became cheap labor, building Egyptian supply cities with few privileges. There are frightening similarities with guest workers in this country.

I want to suggest to you that a way forward in the immigration debate would be three fold.

1. The first would be to recognize that people immigrate from poor countries for a reason. They immigrate because of poverty and oppression, and part of the reason for that poverty and oppression is the action or the inaction of the rest of the world.

America needs to accept at least some responsibility for poverty in Mexico. If America as a country would address poverty in Mexico, there would be fewer illegal immigrants.

Now this is just an opinion, this is arguable, but in my estimation, the NAFTA agreement of the early 90’s has done more harm for Mexico than good. It may have benefited America more than Mexico. It is possible that policies that come out of this country actually increase the level of poverty in Mexico. So the first point is that America needs to recognize its own complicity, at least partly, in the reasons that people illegally immigrate.

2. The second point is that if we can clean up legal immigration and make that process easier and more just, once again we will lessen illegal immigration.

3. Thirdly, I want to propose that we see all people who are legal immigrants in this country as Americans in waiting. If we see legal immigrants as Americans in waiting, then these Americans in waiting should have full voting rights and equal access to the laws and structures of this country.

If we take these steps we may lessen illegal immigration.

Maybe what this country needs is not a longer fence on its border, but rather a statue; a statue that welcomes and celebrates diversity.

This statue would welcome not just new languages, food, and cultures, but it would embrace the hopes and dreams of new arrivals, allowing these visions to shape the national identity.

Just maybe what this country needs is a statue that stands at the borders and welcomes people for their vision and for their passion.

But, wait a minute. We already have that. Her name is Liberty.