On the Sunday before Labor Day, September 6, I preached a sermon about the plight of undocumented immigrants which began a discuss which I invite you to take part in. Since my sermons are usually composed orally, this summary is what I remember that I preached, not what you actually heard.
I began by telling the story of the day I was pulled over for talking on my cell phone while driving. Driving kids home from school, I had just turned left and barely missed a pedestrian in the crosswalk. The officer gave me a stern talking to, but didn't give me a ticket. I connected this to an incident I had learned about at a press conference given by "Reform Immigration for America" I heard the story of a young man who was brought to the US from Mexico at the age of six. He did well in school and was accepted at several universities. Because he is undocumented he does not qualify for student loans so he took a full time job and enrolled at UIC. One night he drove four blocks from a friends house, rolled through a stop sign and was stopped. He now faces deportation on December 16.
Hearing his story made me realize how I, a middle class white woman, was privileged to get a second chance. Because of one mistake this young man will have his whole life uprooted, sent to a country he doesn't remember, where he has little or no family support. I have learned what deportation means. People are taken to the Broadview detention center. Handcuffed and shackled they are driven to O'Hare and put on a plane to Texas. There they are driven to the border, given $20, and let go in the dangerous border town of Juarez.
I quoted from the morning's reading from Proverbs (22:8), "Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity."
I said that the broken immigration system has already created calamity in families, workplaces, and in our communities. I called for this unjust treatment to end. I believe we must fix our broken immigration system.
If Proverbs were written today Proverbs 22:22-23 might be written this way (changed words are in blue):
"Do not rob the immigrants because they are undocumented,
or crush the afflicted at the border;
for the LORD pleads their cause
and despoils of life those who despoil them."
The response is posted as a comment, anonymously, but with the permission of the author. My response is posted as well.
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2 comments:
Thank you so much for your thoughtful response. This was the most “political” sermon I have preached at St. John’s and there is always a risk that I am not clear with my message. I guess I wasn’t!
I agree that the immigration laws should be followed, as your parents followed them, and as did many Mexican and other immigrants who came 20 or more years ago. The problem, as I see it, is that the laws were written for a different time, and now the system is so backlogged that we, our government, are putting people in inhuman situations because we haven’t followed through in enforcing those laws. The system is broken.
As I’ve talked to lawyers and immigrants I’ve discovered that enforcement is random. Deportation breaks up families, puts people on the streets or leaves them jobless. We, as private citizens can chose to help or ignore. As citizens we should report them, not hire them, send them away. As Christians, we have a responsibility to try to help them with food, shelter, basic human dignity. I think the broken system puts us between a rock and a hard place. So I think the system needs to be fixed. That will not mean that everyone gets amnesty…but there should be a fair way to deal with those who have been here a long time, have waited years for citizenship (I met one man who was still waiting after 11 years), and who have been paying taxes, but will receive no benefits (like social security) on the taxes they’ve paid.
I don’t know if the young man is trying to become a citizen. He certainly must have known he couldn’t drive without a license. I think of him as an innocent victim because he didn’t chose to live here, his parents did, and now if he goes back to Mexico he has no close family to live with, and he might never have the case to return to school.
I hope this clarifies what I was trying to say, I am certainly not an expert, and I know it is a very complicated issue. I appreciate your willingness to challenge me; it makes me a better preacher and a better person.
Thanks you,
Kara
This is a great discussion; it's one that needs to happen so we can begin to understand where our differences truly come from!
I want to commend Rev. Kara for taking a bold step in giving a sermon that can spark so much controversy! And I think that there is no better time to do it then on the Sunday before Labor Day when we celebrate the workers, the ones who wake up at the crack of dawn and come home after sunset just to make sure there is enough money to put food on the table.
Although I understand that for a person whose parents came here legally it is difficult to understand why some people cannot wait until they can enter legally. I mean it seems like the fair thing to do! The problem with this is that there is no line to wait in and there is, for many people, no hopes of ever entering legally with the current laws! There is a lottery, and every year about 3 million to 5 million people around the word apply, but only 50,000 are granted! That means that only 1% of applicants are granted legal entrance to the US! Otherwise, the only other way of obtaining residency before entering the country is through family based immigration. A father can petition for his under-aged child after he has become a citizen, but it takes 5 years to become a citizen, a wife can petition for her husband, or her mother, but only after being separated for at least 6 years since it takes 5 years before you can apply for citizenship (4 yrs. 9 mon.) and then you have to wait for the application process for the family member. If however, you want to sponsor a sibling, you will be waiting anywhere from 14 to 21 years!
At the end of the day, for many people around the world, immigration becomes about survival and about family. I could not wait 6 six years before being able to live with my mother or father, if they are so lucky enough to have legal status in the US, which is almost impossible for a person of low means with no hopes of obtaining work visas. I could not wait for the slight 1% to be able to come to the US in hopes of obtaining a job so I can feed my family and give my child an education.
Immigration is a reality that needs to reformed. We cannot continue to just say they broke the law when the law is unjust and does not give actual, real, feasible, solutions so that people can come in without breaking the law. Furthermore there are already 12 million people here. 12 million people with children, siblings, friends, and mothers and fathers- and as Christians we are obligated to see them in such light. And as for Rigo Padilla, the young man Kara spoke about, he did break the law, he broke 2, one at the age of 6- and I am sure nobody can blame him for that. The second was as a young adult, but I think the connection that Kara made with herself is excellent! We all break the law now and then when it comes to traffic violations; I will admit that this morning as I was running late to work I drove over 30 mph down Milwaukee which is 25 mph. Many us are lucky because we are not one traffic violation from being separated from our families and taken from the only country we know!
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