Video
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feed
Arizona immigration law outlaws faithful acts
Q: Illegal immigrants are flouting U.S. laws, but does affluent America (or Arizona for that matter) have a larger moral or spiritual obligation to help illegal immigrants who are trying to better their lives? What about religious obligations to welcome the stranger? Are we our brother's keeper?
Much of the public conversation regarding the Arizona immigration law centers around the possibility that it will lead to racial profiling in order to deport undocumented workers. There is also a section of the law that prohibits the harboring or transport of undocumented workers. This places many faith communities outside of the law. Christians are told in Matthew 25:35 that we will be judged on whether or not we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, tend to the sick and visit the prisoner. If an undocumented worker comes to our door, it is our religious obligation to welcome that stranger. Such would be a violation of Arizona law.
The law says: "The provisions of this act are intended to work together to discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens and economic activity by persons unlawfully present in the United States." It also says it is illegal: "To conceal, harbor or shield or attempt to conceal, harbor or shield an alien from detection in any place in this state, including any building or any means of transportation, if the person knows or recklessly disregards the fact that the alien has come to, has entered or remains in the United States in violation of law."
What does this mean? Does this mean that an undocumented person cannot attend services if the leader of the congregation knows that the person is undocumented? Or does it mean that an undocumented person cannot hide in a building owned by a faith community? Or both? Does this mean that if an undocumented person comes to a faith community and needs medical attention and someone takes that person to the hospital or to the doctor, knowing that they are undocumented, that they have violated the law? Do faith communities have an obligation to ask for papers before they issue any aid to anyone who comes to their door?
The Sanctuary Movement in the United States started in the 1980s as a movement of faith communities that gave shelter to refugees from political violence in Central America. Many of those people came to the United States without proper documentation. They were illegal. The people involved in that movement disobeyed the law intentionally because they saw the law as morally unjustified. They traced the roots of their convictions to the Underground Railroad and beyond. If the choice is between treating human beings the way the scriptures command or following the laws of this or that jurisdiction in a particular historical moment, those in the Sanctuary Movement chose to obey the commands of scripture.
People of faith in Arizona may very well find themselves in the same position when this law takes effect. There is an answer to this problem. The provisions of the McCain-Kennedy Bill proposed in the United States Senate some years ago would allow undocumented persons in the United States a way toward legal residence and citizenship. It would also provide for a guest worker program that would provide an easier path for people to come into the country legally.
Alexandra Villareal O'Rourke writing in the Harvard Latino Law Review, Spring 2006, says the McCain-Kennedy Bill would be "an effective response to the financial and practical barriers that would make an enforcement-only approach unfeasible because it creates real incentives for undocumented people currently in the United States to take steps to legalize their status." Her essay argues for greater protections for guest workers so they are not exploited by unscrupulous employers.
She says further: "Once the bill incorporates greater protections, it will have the potential to revolutionize America's immigration policy by preventive solution to undocumented immigration that embraces the realities of the immigrant population and provides incentives for present and future migrants to come out of the shadows and take the path of the law."
This bill did not receive strong enough support from American citizens. Too many of us see immigrants as a threat. What will happen to the political clout of our own group if another group grows too large? We too often view this issue through zero-sum lens. If one group wins another loses. Such is the wrong way to view this situation. We ought to welcome the stranger because when all is said and done they are human beings who want the same things we want. The gospel according to Star Trek. They want to live long and prosper. It is possible for all of us to work together so everyone will have a better life. It is a matter of just distribution of resources.
We who live lives of privilege have a moral and a spiritual obligation to help illegal immigrants trying to better their lives. Our religious obligation to welcome the stranger is stronger than the laws of the state. And not only are we our brother's and sister's keeper, but we are our brother and sister at a different moment.
French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his concept of differance helped us to see the relationship between this and that. It is a relationship that shows both distinctions and sameness. It differs and it defers. This not that. Later not now. The one is the Other different and deferred. I am my brother or my sister at a different moment in time and space.
The African-American acapella singing group Sweet Honey in the Rock sings: "Would You Harbor Me?" Today undocumented workers may require shelter, safety, refuge. Tomorrow it might be Christian, Muslim, Jew, heretic, convict, spy, run away woman, child, poet, prophet, king, exile, refugee, person living with AIDS, fugitive, slave, lesbian, gay . .
Sweet Honey asks: "Would you harbor me? Would I harbor you?" Would we harbor even when it is illegal? An outlaw faith says yes.
By
Valerie Elverton Dixon
|
May 25, 2010; 2:35 PM ET
| Category:
social justice
Save & Share:
Previous: Immigration, charity and national integrity |
Next: Immigration issue uncovers new biblical literalists
Posted by: farnaz_mansouri2 | May 26, 2010 9:11 PM
Report Offensive Comment
When you refer to an estimated 12 to 14 million illegal immigrants as undocumented aliens you are already misrepresenting the issue. The illegal immigrants aren't here because some low level clerk in the State Department's bureaucracy failed to file a document- these people violated the law and came into this country illegally- and you completely disregard that fact- shame on you for misrepresenting the facts on a moral issue
Posted by: 27anon72 | May 26, 2010 11:36 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Valerie, honey, first of all, they're illegal aliens, not "undocumented persons".
Ombudsman1:
Second, the United States is being generous in simply deporting illegals. Most other countries would punish the criminals as well.
Third, God has never claimed that sneaking across the border is a Christian act. Perhaps you have some different version of the Bible where this is the 11th commandment
Finally, if you truly believe what you've written, I've got to assume you're abusing a controlled substance of some sort.
____________________________
Sweetcakes, God didn't say anything about sneaking around borders, since the construct did not exist for Him. In its modern form, that whole border-sneaking thing came from the Christian folk.
Now just imagine, dear, what would happen to your Christian imperialist economy without those border crosser? Looking bad now?
It will look a lot worse. YOu'll have to hope Jesus brings donuts when he comes around again.
Posted by: farnaz_mansouri2 | May 26, 2010 10:24 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Valerie, honey, first of all, they're illegal aliens, not "undocumented persons".
Second, the United States is being generous in simply deporting illegals. Most other countries would punish the criminals as well.
Third, God has never claimed that sneaking across the border is a Christian act. Perhaps you have some different version of the Bible where this is the 11th commandment
Finally, if you truly believe what you've written, I've got to assume you're abusing a controlled substance of some sort.
Posted by: Ombudsman1 | May 26, 2010 2:08 AM
Report Offensive Comment
How about the bank robbers who just need money for their families. Are you morally obligated to help them too? Not a big difference. Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. It lowers the wages of law abiding citizens.
Posted by: lauther266 | May 25, 2010 7:15 PM
Report Offensive Comment
You have a moral obligation to help the people in this country find jobs. Not to give them to people who do nothing but lower the cost of wages, raise the cost of support, and lower the standard of living.
If someone wants to come here and they do they do the paperwork, I welcome them with open arms. But these people do not. They conspire to break the law as soon as they make the decision to cross the boarder. They break the law every day that they are here and they are not welcome.
Posted by: dbeins | May 25, 2010 6:51 PM
Report Offensive Comment
My answer - render unto God that which is God's and unto Caesar that which is Caesar's.
Basically God and religion have no place interfering in decisions taken by a legitimate national state. So basically religion should not interfere in immigration policy nor shelter those who break the immigration law. If religions and churches want to intervene in the political arena of immigration then they have no right to a tax-exempt status.
We should remove the tax exemption for churches which shelter illegal immigrants and tolerate lawbreaking.
Posted by: Lavrat2000 | May 25, 2010 4:00 PM
Report Offensive Comment
The comments to this entry are closed.
Valerie,
A very fine essay.
The defeat of McCain-Kennedy marked a moment in which I was truly ashamed of this nation. McCain's entirely unconvincing switch to the right on immigration was radically brought home to me during one of his more memorable campaign stops. Unconvinced of his change of heart, the audience began to heckle him. He paused, looked to the side seemingly to tell himself to remain calm. The first few seconds of his reply were peaceful enough. The latter went something like this: "YOU go tell some soldier fighting in Iraq that you're going to deport his mother, 'cause I'M NOT going to.
----------------------------------
Derrida is useful on the Other. On the issue of ethnic/national identity, I was particularly taken with an essay titled "Force of the Law: The Mystical Foundation of Authority," in Cornel, Drucilla, Michael Rosenfeld, David Gray Carlson, eds.
"Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice" (1992).
Of course, the Other is best understood and defined by Levinas, as Derrida endlessly said. Levinas, "Totality and Infinity." See also, "Difficult Freedom."
Interestingly Derrida, who had very little of what we consider Jewish education was aware that abstract presence/absence, etc., figured heavily in his thinking. Levinas, the observant Jew stated that his work on Judaism was absolutely separate from his philosophical work; however, that work read differently.
These two Jewish men, both radically unconventional as Jews, spent their lifetimes, writing, "Welcome the stranger."
Welcome the stranger.