Presbyterians concerned about immigration, who are watching closely the Senate debate over immigration reform and feeling the press of an estimated 12 million undocumented workers on cities and congregations, know this: whatever legislation gets passed, this issue won’t just go away.
A new “Presbyterians for Just Immigration” e-mail network https://www.pcusa.org/acrec/immigrationreform.htm is jumping with conversation about what’s happening — with folks tracking the status of proposed legislation and lobbying efforts, and brainstorming about what, in local communities, can and needs to be done.
If legislation is put in place that would impede churches from helping undocumented immigrants — a version of this has already passed the U.S. House of Representatives — then “we aren’t going to obey,” said Mauricio Chacón, pastor of Iglesia Presbiteriana de la Misión in San Francisco. “We are going to have civil disobedience. … as Christians, we have a higher law than the law of man. … This goes against my principles, against my beliefs, as a religious person.”
This spring, close to a million people took to the streets in Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Denver, Phoenix and elsewhere to protest legislation the Senate was considering that would require churches and social services organizations to ask immigrants for legal documentation before providing assistance.
That, Presbyterians involved with immigration work say, could have serious implications for congregations and individuals involved with such humanitarian work as providing food, water, and medical care for immigrants in need.
Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles said during an Ash Wednesday homily that he would instruct priests to defy any such requirement.
Christianity Today, in an April 3 editorial https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/114/12.0.html entitled “Blessed are the Courageous,” speaks of the courage and deep religious faith many immigrants show as they dare to cross the blazing desert. The editorial calls for crafting immigration policy that acknowledges the complexity of the issues involved and respects both the nation’s need to control its borders and the immigrants’ humanity and strength, saying: “Respect for law is not negotiable, but it is not everything.”
Students in colleges and high schools are discussing the ethics of immigration reform and American trade policy — and the role that undocumented workers play in their local economies. They recognize that all around them undocumented workers are roofing houses, washing dishes in restaurants, cleaning hotel rooms, or picking produce in the fields — doing jobs for which they earn relatively low wages and which affect the prices U.S. consumers pay for the goods and services they buy.
Even those with legal immigration status often struggle to make a living.
Following the success of a now-ended boycott against Taco Bell, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) currently is supporting efforts to convince McDonald’s to pay a penny a pound more for the tomatoes it uses, and to instruct its suppliers to pass that extra money on to the farm workers who pick the tomatoes in the fields. For a worker, that could mean an increase from $50 to $90 for a day’s wages — a day that can amount to 12 or 14 hours of labor in the sweltering sun.
A boycott against McDonald’s hasn’t been declared, but representatives of the tomato pickers, from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, have been traveling across the country on a “Truth Tour,” picketing for change at McDonald’s restaurants and corporate offices.
So there is a sense of the immigration issues pressing down, weighing on people’s hearts and consciences. And, while some Presbyterians feel passionate about these matters, there is disagreement too about what should be done — about how a nation should respond when 12 million people have come without permission and many of them now want to stay.
John Fife, a retired Presbyterian pastor from Tucson and a former General Assembly moderator, has long been involved with humanitarian work with migrants crossing the Arizona desert. Even if the Senate does not concur, an immigration bill the U.S. House of Representatives passed in December “is a new low in United States moral history,” Fife said. “People of faith just need to understand how punitive and destructive that particular political reaction to immigration has sunk to. … Since 9/11 we have become more and more fearful of outsiders, of foreigners, of people of color.”
And in the response to the proposed legislation, a new coalition is building to call for justice in immigration reform, Fife said — a coalition that cuts across religious and political lines.
The House vote “woke people up,” he said. “The future of the denomination depends upon how effective we can be in ministry with immigrant groups,” be they undocumented or legal.
Julia Thorne is a lawyer hired by the PC(USA) to work on immigration reform and to work with middle governing bodies on immigration concerns. Thorne said some Presbyterian congregations have serious concerns about the impact of proposed legislation — because many who worship there, or in some cases the pastors themselves, are undocumented.
“I think presbyteries are going to have to get to a point where they sit down and discuss, ‘What if,’ “ Thorne said.
What if — as is already true in places as diverse as Florida, North Carolina, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Ohio — a community experiences an influx of immigrants from Mexico and Central America. How does a congregation respond in ministry? How far would a particular church or individuals be willing to go to protest a law they consider unjust?
How does a congregation begin to talk about these questions — knowing there may be a range of views among the members, as there is in Congress and among religious leaders, about what the laws ought to be?
Chacón thinks Presbyterians also need to learn more about the economic issues that underlie the stream of migration north — what propels the immigrants to leave their families and homelands and risk the hard and possibly deadly journey?
“They don’t come over here to take anything” from others, Chacón said. “They come over here to work,” often at jobs others are reluctant to take because of low pay and hard conditions.
In California, he’s involved with the Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights, and has seen firsthand how undocumented workers are treated. “They come to my church,” Chacón said. “They tell me their stories.”
He has met Mayans from Yucatán who were taken advantage of because they didn’t speak good enough Spanish — it’s not their first language.
For the last two years, Chacón’s congregation has held a health fair where immigrants could come for physicals, vision and dental screening, even acupuncture, free of charge. Last year 700 people showed up. The program started, he said, after an elder from the church passed out one day, but didn’t want to go to the doctor. Chacón insisted — and it turned out the man had diabetes but hadn’t been receiving medical care and didn’t know it.
The congregation also is working to set up free legal assistance — not just for immigration concerns, but also for problems such as difficulties with landlords.
Chacón, who’s been in the United States for 30 years, emigrated from El Salvador. He’s legal now, but says, “I came undocumented. I came because they were going to kill me if I stayed another day. … I’m always working with immigrants because I’m an immigrant myself.”
