Kerygma and Catechesis: The Church Speaks on the Separation of Immigrant Families in the USA

Monday, June 18, 2018

The Church Speaks on the Separation of Immigrant Families in the USA

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A short statement on immigration issues in the U.S.

Immigration is a complex issue. It involves numerous categories of people including refugees and asylum seekers fleeing dire and life threatening situations, those with means that simply seek a better life, some who come legally and learn to navigate the bureaucracy and those that get lost in the system. It includes border patrol officers who put their lives on the line keeping out drug and human traffickers. There is political rancor and those that would use fear to distort the real situation in border towns for their personal advantage. So, how can we understand this issue? One of the best statements I have ever read on this topic comes from the Bishop of El Paso, who lives and works in this context.

He writes, "every human being bears with him or her the image of God, which confers upon us the dignity higher than any passport or immigration status. On account of that dignity, the Church has long recognized the first right of persons not to migrate, but to stay in their community of origins. But when that has become impossible, the church has also recognizes the right to migrate. While countries have a duty to ensure that immigration is orderly and safe, this responsibility can never serve as a pretext to build walls and shut the door to migrants and refugees." I would add or to treat people in a way not in keeping with their basic God given human rights.

While almost every Christian denomination has spoken against the United States Government's current immigration policy of family separation, our own Stated Clerk of the PC(USA) has also weighed in. Our own General Assembly has also released a statement calling for a fix to this broken immigration system and putting a stop to pulling families apart. I have included links below.

I understand the complexity of this situation, as I have personally known undocumented people and their very unique and differing circumstances. However, migration should never be criminalized, and asylum seekers and refugees should never be detained as criminals. Their children should certainly never be taken away from them. The stories being reported are deeply disturbing and constitute violations of human rights. It is immoral. The links provided to statements from different denominations is intended to help shed light on the situation from a Christian faith perspective, and from the traditional teachings of the church that has guided God's people for millennia, going back into the oldest parts of the Old Testament. My prayer is that readers will engage this prayerfully and with an open mind as we seek to influence social policy.

Catholic Reporter "Pastor Letter"

Statement from Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly Stated Clerk the Rev. J. Herbert Nelson, II, issued a statement from the denomination’s 223^rdGeneral Assembly condemning the Trump administration’s new policy of separating young children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The full text of Nelson’s statement, dated June 16, 2018:

As Presbyterians gather for the meeting of our 223rd General Assembly, we are mindful of the many issues of justice, peace and compassion we face, both as citizens of the United States and members of the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ.

While we face issues of peace on the Korean peninsula, tragic injustice in the Middle East, and the spectre of climate change in our nation and our world, there is nothing of more urgency than the tragedy that is unfolding at our borders, where children are ripped from their parents and placed in holding cells, while their frantic parents scream in agony at the separation.
What has this nation become? How have we wandered so far from Jesus’ kind admonition, “Let the little children come to me … for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs”? How can this be happening in a nation in which so many claim the traditions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam and the critical importance of families to the fabric of our lives together?
Perhaps the most egregious aspect of this policy is the willingness of the highest legal official of our nation to suggest that if a mother has fled violence in her own country to save herself and her children but has not had a chance to make a proper petition for safety in the U.S., she should be taught a lesson by having her children taken from her. It is almost incomprehensible that these acts should be used as a warning to others who would come.

What makes matters worse is the audacity of quoting the Apostle Paul’s admonition to believers in Romans 13:1 to obey the law (presumably whatever the law says), while ignoring the higher scriptural demand that “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10).
The crisis of tens of thousands of desperate people coming to the United States for relief seems almost overwhelming. But as the officials of our government attempt to address the crisis, we cannot afford to tarnish the highest values of our nation. We must not punish desperate parents by tearing their children away from them, leaving the parents without access to the children or assurance of their welfare.
In the name of God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ: Stop!

In the faith we share,
Stated Clerk Signature