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February 2006
Fear, Faith
and Immigrants Our faith calls us to view immigration as an act of hope in search of a life of dignity and justice. As God’s creation, we have an inherent dignity that must be honored and respected. Not only are we required to honor and respect that dignity in others, we must also honor it in ourselves. When injustice and extreme poverty combine to strip people of their dignity, we recognize that they have a right to change their circumstances even if that means entering and working in another country without documents. For those of us who are not immigrants, we honor the innate dignity of human beings by protecting their right to food, shelter, clothing and the opportunity to provide for their own good and the good of society. In a world “in which global poverty and persecution are rampant, the presumption is that persons must migrate in order to support and protect themselves and that nations who are able to receive them should do so whenever possible.” (Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope. A Pastoral Letter Concerning Migration from the Catholic Bishops of Mexico and the United States, number 15. Issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, January 22, 2003.) Our faith calls us to treat all equally as children of God without regard to color, sex, race, origin, or religion. We are called to live in community with one another, sharing and drawing upon our strengths. We have a strong Biblical tradition that reveals God as present in strangers and we are called on repeatedly in our scriptures to welcome the stranger. As people of God we are part of a world-wide community which extends beyond exclusionary borders and which embraces refugees and immigrants. Our strength and well-being lies in embracing diversity. Immigrants who migrate to this country do so in order to participate in their own human development. They are searching for jobs that increase their dignity; they are searching for wages sufficient to support their families. They want to openly participate in the social fabric of the community. Historically the United States “has consistently received refugees, exiles, and the persecuted from other lands. Fleeing injustice and oppression and seeking liberty and the opportunity to achieve a full life, many have found work, homes, security, liberty, and growth for themselves and their families.” Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope, A Pastoral Letter Concerning Migration from the Catholic Bishops of Mexico and the United States, number 15, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, January 22, 2003. Instead, those without documents are forced to live in the shadows, hoping to blend into the silence rather than be leaders of the community. Current immigration laws do not respect the right to a life with dignity, are a barrier to community and create the isolation and fear that destroys community. Fear exists on all sides of the immigration question – fear among undocumented immigrants because they are forced to act outside the law and into a life at the edges of society where they are exploited and abused; fear among immigrants, in general, because they are discriminated against; and fear among non-immigrants because they believe that their abundance (jobs, tax money, social services) is threatened by the new immigrants. In order to realize the potential of our richly diverse community we must overcome these fears. Current immigration laws keep us divided and keep immigrants who have helped create the nation’s abundance from participating in community life. These immigration laws promote exploitation and injustice. They are immoral. Changing these laws is not just about helping immigrants; it is about respecting human dignity and about creating community for all of us. We have a history in this country of changing laws that are unjust. The church has been at the forefront of many of these struggles. It is time again for people of faith to be at the forefront in calling on our elected leaders to change an unjust, immoral immigration system. Our immigration laws must be characterized by the principles of justice, fairness, mercy, and respect. We can imagine the society we want to live in – immigrants and non-immigrants living together in a richly diverse community, having no fear of those who are different, confident that we can all share in the abundance of God, and living in a world of justice. But we cannot realize this vision without first changing the immigration laws of this country. |
On-Line Immigration Resources Justice for Immigrants: The Catholic Campaign for Immigration Reform www.justiceforimmigrants.org National Council of La Raza: www.nclr.org The National Immigration Law Center www.nilc.org |