My sister has three adult children. Her eldest is much like her mother: She has strong beliefs and opinions and is not reluctant to share them at the necessary time. She attended her church on the Sunday after November elections. And she walked out in the middle of the service because her pastor’s message revolved around football and other fluff. She emailed him and told him how wrong she thought it was for him, at a time when we are immersed in major issues and conflicts, to avoid dealing with them. To his credit he responded to her, agreed with her, and apologized.
As Christians enter into the season of Lent, a large number of our neighbors are dealing with great uncertainty and fear. They do not know if or when they may be deported. Children wait for their parents to be taken away. Many Hispanics who are legal residents or citizens face the prospect that spouses or other loved ones may be sent back to the places of their birth, even if they have been here for decades. People avoid law enforcement officials at times when they may be needed, lest perhaps they or a relative be exposed and detained for not having appropriate documentation.
To their credit, hundreds of religious leaders in Iowa have spoken out against this brand of cruelty and called for a better solution to our broken immigration policies. Prayer, counsel, and advocacy are being offered from many quarters. In particular, the Methodist organization Justice for Our Neighbors has offered legal assistance for both refugees and immigrants in Iowa, including Osceola, and will continue to do so.
Most immigrants come to Iowa for the same reason my grandparents did. They wish to lift themselves out of poverty. Many flee dangerous situations in their homelands. I hear the cry, “Yes, but they entered the country illegally.” If one knows the history of our diplomatic, military and economic relations with Latin American nations, this can be a very cynical response. We have sent troops into Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America dozens of times. We have supported revolutions against legitimately elected governments. We have aided dictatorships who have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of their own people. In nations like Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, the continued instability contributes to people fleeing north for relief from the residue of those horrors. Northern hemisphere corporations have bled the south economically for their own profits with marginal concern for the economic health ofthe countries and individuals they have used.
Hence the illegality of immigrant flight pales in significance in my eyes--and heart--to the injustices inflicted upon their countries by our own for most of the past two centuries. They would indeed have been better off if a wall had been built long ago to protect them from us. The greatest commandment, as we all know, is to love God with our whole being and our neighbor as ourselves. How exactly to express our love is often complex and difficult to ascertain. What not to do is often more obvious. Tearing up lives and families does not fit well into the call to love.