Wednesday, September 23, 2020

Prophetic Justice Means Remembering Refugees and Immigrants

When immigrants live in your land with you, you must not cheat them. Any immigrant who lives with you must be treated as if they were one of your citizens. You must love them as yourself, because you were immigrants in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 19: 33-34

Something that is most certainly true about Christians everywhere is this: the stories of our faith are filled with the experiences of immigrants and refugees, people like Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Miriam, Ruth and Naomi, Joseph and Mary, and Paul, Peter, and many other of Jesus’ early disciples. Oh, our translations might use a different word, like “aliens” or “strangers” but they were immigrants. They were people moving from one place to another in search of food or work or land.

Here is something else that is most certainly true: The Lutheran church was carried to North America by immigrants and refugees, starting during colonial times and accelerating after the United States became a country. Some of those early founders of Lutheranism in America were refugees, fleeing persecution, battlefields, and devastated cities in Europe. But many others were economic migrants, like my three German grandparents, hoping to build better lives for themselves and their families.

For the past few years, as I’ve been listening to what many Lutherans in this synod and other places say about migrants and refugees, it’s clear that this dual history has either been forgotten or intentionally buried. This has happened despite the fact that these are truths that have been part of our readings from scripture and our commemoration of our own history. These truths are pointed out to us over and over again nearly every time we worship.

Are the good Lutherans in Wisconsin listening? Do we remember the stories of our own heritage, both ethnically and spiritually? Do we find anything meaningful in those stories of migration and flight from persecution, anything to hold on to as lessons about how to treat strangers and choose our leaders now?

As a Lutheran who recognizes these truths in the stories of the Bible and our own Reformation history, and who also remembers the stories of his grandparents, I am asking others to recognize and remember. And as a citizen of a country with a convoluted immigration system that is currently broken, I’m especially concerned about an urgent humanitarian issue affecting people living in many of our communities: the recipients of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

What are they? TPS provides legal status for about 400,000 people from seven different countries. The reasons vary, but it’s usually because their original homeland isn’t safe to return to because of war or natural disasters. DACA protects nearly 650,000 individuals, all of whom were children when they were brought to the United States by their parents. Many of them were young enough when they started living here that English is their native language. In their formal education, life experience, and perspective on society, they are Americans, not Mexicans or Sudanese or Vietnamese.

Technically, they are still citizens of countries many have not seen for years, or have no memory of, places where many would only be able to speak their “native” language as foreigners. It’s a technicality, a matter of paperwork, not identity. But in the eyes of many of us, the only thing that apparently matters is that paperwork. The only thing that matters appears to be perfect compliance with rules, even if those rules and regulations result in actions that are cruel and unfair.

If TPS and DACA protections are taken away or ignored by government agencies like ICE, it will affect not only the recipients, but also the more than two million family members who live with them, including hundreds of thousands of children who are US citizens. Deporting TPS and DACA recipients will have a negative impact in communities where they are business owners, teachers, lawyers, office workers, essential workers, and health care providers [including many working on the frontlines during this epidemic].

As followers of Jesus and the children of Sarah and Abraham, we can take action to show we care about what happens to TPS and DACA recipients, their families, and our communities. As Lutheran Christians living out our faith, we can help others understand that helping them is both a spiritual and a humanitarian issue, that we are called to respond to the needs of TPS and DACA families as a way of doing God's work. We can find allies in other faith communities or outside the church to join us in taking action to support TPS and DACA families and become advocates for compassion, not legalism.

Deacon David Rask Behling, Hunger and Justice Advocate, NW Synod of Wisconsin

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