C3/CCC Sermon Transcript for November 11, 2007 Today I have a challenge. I am an immigrant talking about immigration. It’s a challenge because it is a very complex issue, one with so many interrelated issues, and it is very hard to have a black and white opinion about any one of them. My hope is not necessarily that you will agree with my perspective; that is not so important. What is more important is that you might consider how inclusive are your views on immigration. My first hope is that you might expand your circles of care and compassion. My other hope is that you might consider your responsibility as a global citizen. Let me begin with a general comment about my experience with American culture. Hospitality and Post 9/11 Fear I find Americans to be exceedingly welcoming and hospitable. While Americans are very welcoming and hospitable, another quality has crept into the American psyche in the post 9/11 years. A certain fear appears to have slipped into the mindset of the country. It seems to be a fear of those who are different. This fear that I have observed creeping into the country has led to an attitude of closing rank, an attitude where the needs of this country have become an emphasis to the exclusion of the needs of the whole globe. Now, it is a worrying trend because the irony is that if America closes rank and is simply concerned with its own issues and needs, refusing to see the needs of the wider world as inter-related to our needs, that will come back to bite us. It will affect the well being of this country. So along with the responsibility to be global citizens, it is also in the best interest of this country to have a broad inclusiveness, and to consider the issues of the world as all of our issues. Immigration is a complex issue, one that defies easy categorization. It defies the labels of conservative or liberal. There are conservatives in this country who want tighter immigration laws in the interests of national purity. On the other hand some conservatives favor looser immigration laws for reasons of the economic benefit that comes from a class of guest workers who work cheaply and receive few benefits. Then there are liberals who are in favor of very open, loose immigration policies because they want this country to be welcoming and accepting of all people, embracing diversity. On the other hand, some liberals want much tighter immigration laws because they think it is necessary to keep our labor laws fair and just for all workers. There are liberals who believe immigration is important and that a more open policy is important, but they don’t see that as a number one priority. We have enough pressing national justice issues with without having to deal with poverty in Mexico. Legal Immigration and Justice So there are a range of perspectives. As I was preparing, I set out to speak about illegal immigration. But as the time came closer it became very clear to me that I should speak about legal immigration, and there is a difference. Amongst immigrants in this country, 75% are legal. Of the 25% of immigrants in this country who are illegal, 40% of them have simply overstayed their temporary visas. Which means they are probably lying on a beach somewhere in Florida, having lost track of time! The majority of immigrants in this country are here legally and fairly, and I am one of them. A very small proportion of immigrants in this country are here illegally. I want to focus on legal immigration for a reason, which should become clear as I go on. It seems interesting, apart from anything else, that you have someone speaking to you who is in the middle of the immigration process, and maybe that is helpful for you to understand what the process is like for a legal immigrant. I come from Australia, and apart from my strange accent, America and Australia are not worlds apart. The two cultures are very similar. While I think of it, what’s the difference between yogurt and Australia? Yogurt actually has a real live culture! Australians have a very laid back attitude, and we don’t mind laughing at ourselves. How do you describe a balanced Australian? He has a chip on both shoulders. Did you know that God originally intended for Jesus to be born in Australia but couldn’t find three wise men or a virgin anywhere? My favorite Australian immigration joke is about a person who comes into his interview and is asked if he has a criminal record and replies, “What, do you still need one to get in?” Australia and America are nations of immigrants. Every resident, apart from the indigenous people, is an immigrant. The only difference is that in Australia many immigrants arrived as convicts. Let me describe to you the immigration process as my family has experienced it. We arrived with temporary visas. It took two years to gain permanent, legal status or a Green Card. After this long, difficult and expensive process, we are now described as “legal resident aliens.” Even the fact that it is called alien is significant in this regard. Our experience in this country, and we come from Australia which is so similar, we come with the language, with the support of this large community, with the benefit of lawyers who have helped the process along, is that it is a tough process. How hard must it be for someone without English as a first language? How hard must it be for someone without support structures? How hard must it be for someone coming from a completely different culture, to arrive and deal with the legal and administrative challenges, not to mention the human challenge of adjusting to a new culture? You might expect that legal immigrants have all the same legal rights as naturalized citizens, but in fact that is not true. As a legal immigrant, we cannot vote, either locally or nationally, and that is a huge issue. The second issue is that we don’t have access to all jobs in this country. We can enlist in the military, but cannot serve in the police force or fire brigade. Explain that to me! We could be Senators, Congress People, even Governors of the State, but not the Vice President or President of the country. Where’s the logic in that? We can’t sponsor other family members to come to this country so that they might also be legal immigrants. For many years we won’t have access to all the social benefits of this country’s government structures. But then, maybe the most significant of all is that if a legal immigrant commits a crime, even a non violent misdemeanor, not only do they serve the time and the penalty in this country, but when they finish serving time, they could very well be deported. A law that came in the 1990’s has put into law the reality that many people, half a million people in the last ten years, have been deported after serving their time for a crime in this country, many of which were minor crimes. There is one case of a man from Haiti who immigrated in 1970 to America. He enlisted in the military, served four years in the Marines, after which he had children, three decades in this country, children who are naturalized Americans, grandchildren as well. In the 1990’s this man was convicted of a very small time use of cocaine. He served time in prison here, at the end of which he was deported back to Haiti. That’s the most significant of all the differences of a legal immigrant to a citizen of this country, and it takes at least five years from the time you become a legal immigrant to the time you might be recognized as a citizen of this country. This means that legal immigrants spend at least seven years in this country without the right to vote, without the right to sponsor other family members to come as legal immigrants, and with unequal rights under the law. That’s the unjust reality. The reason I am telling you this is that I believe that if we address the issue of legal immigration, making it easier, more just, and more sensitive to the needs of those who are coming to this country, we might lessen the amount of illegal immigration. If it were easier to come here, as well as a more favorable experience, we might have fewer people coming as illegal immigrants. Immigration in the Hebrew Tradition Consider the issue of immigration in light of the Hebrew tradition that we inherit. I wonder if you have ever considered that Jesus was an illegal immigrant? He and his parents were, according to the story, illegal immigrants in Egypt, forced to flee because of poverty and oppression. Living in a foreign land, fearing for their lives as illegal immigrants. The whole Hebrew story is one of immigration; exile and return. The Hebrew people were immigrants in Egypt. They too had fled poverty and oppression. And they lived in Egypt fearing for their lives as people who didn’t have equal rights under the law. They became so numerous that the Egyptians were worried that they would be outnumbered, so the King issued an edict that every firstborn boy would be killed. Girls would survive. There is a beautiful story about two Hebrew midwives who were ordered by the Egyptian court to ensure that any firstborn males would be killed at birth. The Hebrew midwives suffered a deep crisis of conscious. When it came the first time that a Hebrew boy was born, and they let the boy live, they were called up to the court to explain. What they said was brilliant. Their answer to the court was that Hebrew women are strong, so strong that they give birth without midwives. They give birth before the midwives even get there. And with a brilliant piece of mother wit, they were able to outwit the Egyptian power elite. The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, "When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth-stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live." But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, "Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?" The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them." So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. One of the boys was Moses. Moses was put in a basket and placed in the river, while his sister Miriam watched on. And when the Egyptian princess found the Hebrew baby and decided to make him her own, Miriam went to her and said, “I have the perfect woman to care for this child!” and introduced the princess to the mother of Moses. Again, creative problem solving! The Hebrew tradition includes story after story of creative resistance, of people, women especially, who acted wisely, creatively, and courageously; radical hospitality in the face of enormous odds. And so an Egyptian princess collaborated with a Hebrew mother and what was set in process was a long history of people crossing boundaries, across race, and tribe to work together to create a more inclusive world. The Egyptian princess offered sanctuary to Moses. She refused to be trapped inside an identity that perceived the Hebrew child as someone to be killed to preserve her national identity. The Hebrew stories and the Jesus story are stories about creative resistance for a purpose, creative resistance in the interest of greater inclusiveness. I don’t tell you that Jesus and the Hebrew people were illegal immigrants in a WWJD sort of way, like you might become an illegal immigrant, but rather to understand the parallels between what is happening in this country and what happened in the ancient near east. Hebrews arrived as economic and political refugees. They soon lost their land tenure and regressed into slavery, quickly became cheap labor, building Egyptian supply cities with few privileges. Does that sound familiar to what has taken place in this country? Creative Resistance Makes a Difference
Chinue Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat in the 1940’s. He was stationed as a border guard in Lithuania, and was ordered by his Japanese authorities not to help the Jews. He and his family would be in danger if he did so. Jews who fled from Poland into Lithuania needed permission to pass through the Soviet Union and Japan in order to continue to other destinations. One day not long after he took up his post, Sugihara found three hundred desperate people, some who had walked all the way from Poland, standing outside his consulate, begging for his help. He had already been officially forbidden to help any Jews seeking to escape the Nazis. He knew to act was to endanger not only his own life, but also the lives of his family. Sugihara made his decision after consulting with his family and listening to his five-year old son ask, ‘If we don’t help them, won’t they die?’” Out of the mouths of babes come great truth. Before his arrest and deportation Sugihara issued more than two thousand exit visas. At one point his hand was so worn from signing these documents he had to put on ice packs to continue. In fact, even after being dismissed from his post and the family was ordered to an internment camp, while riding on the train to his imprisonment he continued to write those exit visas, one paper at a time. And now it is said that there are 50,000 Jewish descendents of Sugihara. One man made a huge difference with his act of creative resistance, with his radical hospitality. How inclusive will you be? It’s easy to accept a legal immigrant from Australia, how will you find it in your heart to accept even those from places that don’t speak English, places with deep crises of economics and oppression? A Broad Immigration Policy I want to suggest to you that a way forward in the immigration debate would be three fold. 1. The first would be to recognize that people immigrate from poor countries for a reason. They immigrate because of poverty and oppression, and part of the reason for that poverty and oppression is the action or the inaction of the rest of the world. America needs to accept at least some responsibility for poverty in Mexico. If America as a country would address poverty in Mexico, there would be fewer illegal immigrants. Now this is just an opinion, this is arguable, but in my estimation, the NAFTA agreement of the early 90’s has done more harm for Mexico than good. It may have benefited America more than Mexico. It is possible that policies that come out of this country actually increase the level of poverty in Mexico. So the first point is that America needs to recognize its own complicity, at least partly, in the reasons that people illegally immigrate. 2. The second point is that if we can clean up legal immigration and make that process easier and more just, once again we will lessen illegal immigration. 3. Thirdly, I want to propose that we see all people who are legal immigrants in this country as Americans in waiting. If we see legal immigrants as Americans in waiting, then these Americans in waiting should have full voting rights and equal access to the laws and structures of this country. If we take that step, once again, we may lessen illegal immigration. There is a poem by Marge Piercy, and I hope it is a poem that will spark both your imagination as well as your vision for what the future might be. What can they do Two people can keep each other It goes on one at a time, I wonder whether each of you might go away and mean “one more” when you say “we?” Just maybe what this country needs is not a longer fence on its border, but rather a statue; a statue that welcomes and celebrates diversity. This statue would welcome not just new languages, food, and cultures, but it would embrace the hopes and dreams of new arrivals, allowing these visions to shape the national identity. Just maybe what this country needs is a statue that stands at the borders and welcomes people for their vision and for their passion. But, wait a minute. We already have that. Her name is Liberty.
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