Friday, September 25, 2020
Understandably we have been so concerned about the number of ill and dying persons here in New Jersey from Covid-19, that we have had little energy to focus on serious human rights issues elsewhere such as in the ICE Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia where women are subject to hysterectomies without their consent.
We have to ask ourselves: What makes us better than the Chinese who are doing the same thing to Uighur women? Pregnant women report that they are shackled and having miscarriages. And this, of course, from an administration that claims it stands for the “right to life.”
If you haven’t seen it on Netflix, you should watch the six-part “Immigration Nation” series filmed with the consent of ICE because ICE thought it would make them look sympathetic. And read the Sojourners report on the Irwin County Detention Center. See how your tax dollars are being used.
Prayer for the Day
We come to you, O God, to confess our failures and our faults,
For we are often afraid of the tasks to which we are called:
We leave the poor in their poverty and the afflicted in their pain,
And we are content to leave your demands for others to fill.
Forgive us, O God, and erase the habits of our uncaring.
And transform our words into action as you call us to do.
In the name of the Transformer of our lives,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
If nightmares can become a reality, why can’t dreams? . . . I imagine a future where immigration prisons do not exist.
Cesar Cuauhtemoc Garcia Hernandez, Law Professor, Denver
“They threw away everything . . . my baby’s diapers, formula, bottle, baby food, and clothes.”
A young mother from El Salvador, quoted in NY Times 7/19/2019
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;
According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
Psalm 51:1–2
A psalm of David when the prophet Nathan
confronted him regarding his sin with Bathsheba