Burden of Action

“A BORDER WALL SEEMS TO VIOLATE a deep sense of identity most Americans cherish. We see ourselves as a nation of immigrants with our own goddess, the Statue of Liberty, a symbol so potent that dissident Chinese students fabricated a version of it in 1989 in Tiananmen Square as the visual representation of their yearning for freedom.”

(Bowden, Charles. “U.S.-Mexico Border: Our Wall.” National Geographic.)

    This past Tuesday, April 1, the United States Homeland Security Secretary waived 30 laws in order to expedite the controversial construction of a border wall. This has become a standard procedure with the Secure Fence Act ever since the passing of the REAL ID ACT which gives a non-elected government official the authority to waive an unlimited number of laws passed by elected officials. In Arizona, 19 different laws were waived in the construction of the wall, unbeknownst to most Americans.

    The same legal trickery occurred during the Civil Rights Movement. Often, local government officials would abuse their power, pitting an unjust law against the federal mandate of integration. During the Birmingham Boycott in 1963, for example, King served a seven-day sentence for violating a court injunction disallowing “parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing.” It was here he would write his seminal work, “Letter from a Birminham Jail.” The sinister thing about the REAL ID ACT, though, is that it works in the reverse; no matter how good the local laws are or how necessary the environmental laws may be, the a single federal official is allowed to waive all laws without so much as a study.

    Where are we to go when the federal government seems to ignore our pleas for justice on the border and hope for immigrants? We must appeal to higher powers, and one overarching authority organization we must beseech is the United Nations. On March 8, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) openly critiqued the U.S. government’s human rights record and effectively tied the border wall to civil rights. In 1994, the United States ratified an international treaty to end racial discrimination, and in keeping with this treaty, the U.N. has urged the United States to:

• Protect non-citizens from being subjected to torture and abuse by means of transfer or rendition to foreign countries for torture;   

• Address the problem of violence against indigenous, minority and immigrant women, including migrant workers, and especially domestic workers; and
• Pass the Civil Rights Act of 2008 or similar legislation, and otherwise ensure the rights of minority and immigrant workers, including undocumented migrant workers, to effective protection and remedies when their employers have violated their human rights.

These three recommendations are key to a lasting solution to immigration and civil rights, whereas a wall is a devastating and divisive gesture which, at best, only treats a symptom not a system. Although Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants Jorge Bustamente was denied access to Texas’s Hutto immigrant detention center (an internment camp which currently detains children and families), the United Nations still came out very strongly for the case of the immigrant within our borders.

    The ACLU was represented at the United Nation’s meeting in Geneva. Lisa Graybill, Legal Director for the Texas ACLU, stated that, “it has been made clear that the U.S.’s responses, especially with regard to the potential seizure of indigenous land for the construction of the wall and the conditioning of basic services on proof of immigration status are in direct violation of the treaty agreed to by the U.S. in 1994.” (http://www.aclutx.org/projects/article.php?aid=557&cid=31) As citizens of the United States and as residents of a global world, we must hold our government to this high standard if we truly wish to see the Beloved Community Dr. King envisioned. Chandra Bhatnagar, an ACLU staff attorney who recently visited Cameron Park to instruct Brownsville immigrants about their legal rights, challenged the United States government to “…match its soaring rhetoric on the importance of human rights globally with a renewed commitment to protecting the rights of vulnerable immigrants here at home.” We must overcome the destructive distraction of this border wall and return to the nonpartisan dialogue on comprehensive immigration reform which began in 2006. (http://www.aclutx.org/projects/article.php?aid=557&cid=31)

    And so, the people of these United States are left with the burden of action. The burden of action has fallen on us, because our elected officials have largely ignored their responsibility to apply the laws for which they voted and which we elected them to protect. The burden of action has fallen on us to remind our nation that it is a nation of people bound together by certain inalienable rights and protected by just legislation. The burden of action has been passed onto us; may we consider it a mantle of activism, a call to bring the morality, the economy, the environmental, the political, and the social aspects of immigration to light in lieu of the blight of a border wall. The burden of action is ours, but it is also an opportunity  – what will we choose to do about it?

People of Faith United For Immigrants- The Catholic Church

    The Catholic Church has a long tradition of aligning itself with the immigrant. Pope Benedict XVI, in his World Day of Migrants and Refugees speech in 2007, said, “In the drama of the Family of Nazareth we see the sorrowful plight of so many migrants…[T]he human person must always be the focal point in the vast field of international migration.” Because of the “inescapable network of mutuality” that King discusses, no part of humanity, however privileged, can ignore any other person’s situation.

    We are our brother’s keeper, just as he is ours. Humane immigration policies are a means of being brotherly; militarized borders are a sign of a refusal to help and a desire for distance. The Catholic Church has come out strongly against our current immigration laws and the proposed border wall. The Catholic Bishops in the U.S. put together the following “Five Principles to Guide Immigration Policy” for the 2008 election.

 

1. Persons have the right to find opportunities in their homeland.

This principle states that a person has a right not to migrate. In other words, economic, social, and

political conditions in their homeland should provide an opportunity for a person to work and

support his or her family in dignity and safety. In public policy terms, efforts should be made to address

global economic inequities through just trade practices, economic development, and debt relief.

Peacemaking efforts should be advanced to end conflict which forces persons to flee their homes.

2. Persons have the right to migrate to support themselves and their families.

When persons are unable to find work and support themselves and their families, they have a

right to migrate to other countries and work. This right is not absolute, as stated by Pope John

XXIII, when he said this right to emigrate applies when “there are just reasons for it.” In the current

condition of the world, in which global poverty is rampant and political unrest has resulted in wars

and persecution, migrants who are forced to leave their homes out of necessity and seek only to

survive and support their families must be given special consideration.

3. Sovereign nations have a right to control their borders.

The Church recognizes the right of nations to protect and control their borders in the service of

the common good of their citizens. However, this is not an absolute right. Nations also have an obligation to the universal common good, as articulated by Pope John XXIII in Pacem in Terris, and

thus should seek to accommodate migration to the greatest extent possible. Powerful economic

nations, such as the United States, have a higher obligation to serve the universal common good,

according to Catholic social teachings. In the current global economic environment, in which labor

demands in the United States attract foreign laborers, the United States should establish an immigration

system that provides legal avenues for persons to enter the nation legally in a safe, orderly,

and dignified manner to obtain jobs and reunite with family members.

4. Refugees and asylum seekers should be afforded protection.

Persons who flee their home countries because they fear persecution should be afforded safe

haven and protection in another country. Conflict and political unrest in many parts of the world

force persons to leave their homes for fear of death or harm. The United States should employ a

refugee and asylum system that protects asylum seekers, refugees, and other forced migrants and

offers them a haven from persecution.

5.The human rights and the human dignity of undocumented migrants should be respected.

Persons who enter a nation without proper authorization or who overstay their visas should be

treated with respect and dignity. They should not be detained in deplorable conditions for lengthy

periods of time, shackled by their feet and hands, or abused in any manner. They should be afforded

due process of the law and, if applicable, allowed to articulate a fear of return to their

home before a qualified adjudicator. They should not be blamed for the social ills of a nation.

http://www.coc.org/election2008/files/catholicBishops.pdf

This well-thought, eloquent logic for immigration reform is the sort of pressure which the Church must continue to exert on the State. Politics and bureaucracy does not necessarily have a moral conscience; it is the Church’s duty to be that conscience, that moral reminder, to keep capitalism in check and legislation within moral law. The Catholic Church, along with its Protestant brothers, would echo King in saying, “…True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring…” More specifically, a system which produces “illegal” people needs major re-imagining, and the Church must be the ones calling out for the individual in the face of the corporate. The Gospel of Jesus must continue to be good news to all, whatever their mother-tongue or father-land.