The Pew Charitable Trust recently released a report of attitudes towards immigration, covering issues as broad as granting some sort of legal status to immigrants brought to the U.S.as children, refugee protection, and border security. The attitudes on these issues are sharply divided between Republicans and Democrats.
It should be a deep concern that only 13% of Republicans think that it’s very important to take in refugees or 14% support family unification. Where on earth do they think their families came from? The Lady in the Harbor speaks to all of us whether we came in 1909 or 1709. This polarization is something we must speak to as Christians.
Supporting a humane immigration policy should not be a partisan issue, which it seems to have become. As an infant Jesus and his family fled to Egypt because Herod was out to kill anyone who stood in his way. Imagine leaving your life here, your friends, your extended family, your everything. The question for us as Christians is how to bridge a gap – how not to make Republicans into Democrats but how to create a consensus on immigration issues. Immigration built this nation. We are all immigrants.
Prayer for the Day
Living God, unlock our hearts so we feel the breath of your Spirit,
unclenching our hands so we reach out to one another;
Open our lips so we are able to drink in the delight of life,
filling us with your call to justice and mercy.
Unclog our ears so we hear you in all humanity,
singing your song of a new life.
In the name of him who sang your song of new life,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Our ancestors ... possessed a right, which nature has given to all men, of departing from the country in which chance, not choice has placed them.
- Thomas Jefferson, 1774
We set this nation up ... to vindicate the rights of man. We did not name any differences between one race and another. We opened our gates to all the world and said: “Let all men who want to be free come to us and they will be welcome.”
- Woodrow Wilson, President, 1914
When strangers sojourn with you in your land, you shall do them no wrong, the strangers who sojourn with you shall be to you as natives among you, and you love them as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 19:33-34