Civil Rights Opportunity of the Century

When Martin Luther King wrote his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” he had in mind several prominent preachers, including Episcopal Bishop C.C. Jones Carpenter. When King wrote, “The ultimate tragedy of Birmingham was not the brutality of the bad people, but the silence of the good people,” he was envisioning these men of faith who had their hands on the levers of hundreds of thousands of consciences. While C.C. Jones Carpenter legalistically disagreed with King’s direct action strategies, he was in effect weighing in with support for the segregationists. One of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr‘s best friends, Bishop Will Scarlett, had attempted earlier to rouse Carpenter’s conscience for integration. Scarlett wrote that integration was “…in line with my suggestion years ago that the sight of the great Bishop of Alabama ridden out of his State on a rail because of courageous and enlightened speech, would be one of the greatest events of many years…I still think so: I think you have an opportunity of a hundred years.” (Parting the Waters, 742)

The Secure Fence Act of 2006 and the shockingly un-Constitutional waivers of 30 laws this past week in order to hasten the wall’s construction provide American citizens and residents the civil rights opportunity of the century. The Secretary of Homeland Security’s waiving of border citizens’ rights and due process is shocking in its blatant disregard for morality and basic human rights; however, we must not let this, the largest waiver so far in the construction of what would eventually be a 2,000-mile border wall, enervate us and cause us to falter.

No, this mass waiver and the thoughtlessness of the Secure Fence Act of 2006 must serve as a rallying cry to unite Americans and to call for real immigration reform with solidarity. I must admit that when I first heard of the waiver on Tuesday, I trembled with shock and disbelief. Having walked 126 miles with 300 people but a few weeks before in the No Border Wall Walk here in the Rio Grande Valley, I had felt we had made a difference. UTB Professor Eloisa Tamez’s case had been a partial victory, and the UTB decision on Wednesday, March 19, had made all activists and citizens begin to believe that perhaps the lines of dialogue were open and our leaders were willing to listen to reason and conscience. My hopes were jarred this April Fool’s Day 2008, but I have now come to understand that this is merely a call to action.

And so to oppose the foolhardiness of this Fool’s Day decision, people of faith must say to the fool there is a God and he is on the side of the stranger and the migrant. People of faith, from Baptists and Methodists to Mennonites and Lutherans and Quakers, from Catholics and Unitarians to Jews and Muslims and Buddhists – all these people of faith are united around the idea of protecting the sanctity of human life and defending the rights of immigrants. All people of faith must therefore unite in solidarity against a border wall which threatens the way of life and the basic human rights of the millions who live on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. People of faith must join in opposition against a double-layered, 18-foot wall which would be economically destructive, environmentally unconscionable, politically backward, socially devastating, and morally reprehensible. If we do not step up in this moment of opportunity, then Dr. King’s words from prison will ring true.

So often [the church] is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent – and often even vocal – sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century (Why We Can’t Wait, 92)

People of faith, and in fact all citizens, must come together today. The REAL ID ACT holds the potential to waive any number of laws in constructing a border wall. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 stands as a deterrent from positive immigration reform and a detriment to the border region, Mexico, and our entire nation of immigrants, both legal and extralegal. Please speak with your faith leader and urge them to adopt a strong resolution against the border wall. The Church is strongest when it is a check of the State, and our nation’s power imbalance must be righted by people of faith today. It is no longer our place to discuss whether or not this is a church issue or a moral dilemma – the time is ripe to do right right now.

April is the Cruellest Month…

“APRIL is the cruellest month…” (Eliot, T.S. The Wasteland)

 

    April Fool’s 2008 will assuredly go down as a cruel day in the history of these United States. On this April 1, the United States government opted to bypass more than 30 laws in hopes of rushing construction of a controversial border wall. The wall is currently held up in negotiations, court cases, local protests, and wavering public support, but Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff ordered these waivers stating, “`Criminal activity at the border does not stop for endless debate or protracted litigation…These waivers will enable important security projects to keep moving forward.”

    The waivers are the biggest use of legal waivers since the administration started building fence. The government waived 20 environmental laws to build the wall in Arizona, but this waver will cover a “total of 470 miles along the Southwest border.” As stated by the Associated Press article leaked today at 11:40, the department will conduct environmental surveys when necessary, but allow them to start building before these are completed.

 

30 laws. 30 laws which took hundreds of days to pass, millions of dollars to lobby and legislate. 30 laws which represent millions of Americans and thousands of endangered animals and ecosystems. 30 laws tossed aside in the name of anti-terrorism. 30 laws tossed aside to complete the Secure Fence Act of 2006 which was proposed as immigration legislation and which has almost no terror-deterrent utility, as admitted by government officials.

 

    Chertoff has stated that the border wall will be beneficial to the environment because immigrants degrade the land with trash and human waste. I somehow cannot reconcile natural human movements with two eighteen-foot walls of solid concrete and vegetation cleared for visibility, mobility, and Border Patrol Access. Having just seen my first jaguarundi this past Saturday, I might be one of the last people to ever see them on American soil if this wall demolishes their ecosystem, along with that of Sonoran Pronghorns, ocelots, Sabal Palms, and many other native fauna and flora.

• What makes a law “red tape,” a thing to be cut and disregarded?
• What makes deterring immigration more important than preserving the rights of a nation of immigrants?
• Who is to decide that people on the border are less important than people in mid-America?
• Who decides that certain endangered animals are not worth saving, certain ecosystems dispensable, certain people undesirable, certain solutions nonnegotiable?

I cannot believe that Americans could be in support of such a foolhardy negation of so many laws, even if they are for a border wall. If “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” then these waivers of legislation serve as a chilling precedent of further lawlessness, much like parts of the Patriot Act. I beseech you to contact your Congressmen, since Congress authorized these waivers just today. I beg you to pray with me that Americans will come to their consciences and oppose these waivers. How we react to these waivers and the impending border wall in this cruel month will decide the legacy of our generation and our nation.