God beckons us: Give sanctuary to immigrants
Monday, December 8, 2014
Fr. Fernando E Heria
The United States of America is a nation of immigrants.
Having said that, we must unfortunately come to terms with the fact that in the darker pages of our nation’s history, we sought to socially and ethnically “cleanse ourselves” through the systematic extermination of the indigenous population that inhabited this beautiful land of God.
Therefore, for the most part, we are presently an acculturated agglomeration of immigrants, many of whom resist being part of a melting pot. Still, we strive to peacefully and respectfully co-exist with one another in the midst of this despairing, myopic and fearful society, while we try to better ourselves and our families’ lives in the “land of the freed and the brave.”
As best I can determine, some people have approached President Obama’s executive action on immigration (issued Nov. 22) from a “political” perspective. I choose to approach it from a “pastoral” perspective in keeping with the social justice teachings of the Catholic Church — teachings that are rooted in sacred Scripture and tradition.
Migration and exile have always been at the very core of who we are as a people of God. Our ancestors in faith, the Israelites, were a nomad people who migrated throughout the so-called Middle East until the Lord brought them to the Land of Milk and Honey he had predestined for them. One could almost argue that since Adam and Eve were expelled from God’s Paradise, we became an immigrant people on the face of the Earth.
Upon reading the infancy narratives in the New Testament, we realize that Jesus, Joseph and Mary were displaced Jews from their own homeland; a family who fled — in fear of their lives, under the color of night, and at great peril — from the despotic political-social-religious persecutory powers of an abusive king. Thus one might describe the Holy Family of Nazareth as the first exiled immigrants of the New Testament.
How could we possibly close our eyes to such overwhelming truth? In good conscience, we cannot.
God now beckons us to give sanctuary to our brothers and sisters in need. Isn’t that what President Obama has done?
Moreover, and I speak now as a Cuban exile: Have we Cubans forgotten what was done for us?
Was it not the exercise of executive power by Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy that allowed us to come to this nation we now call home with visa waivers, so as to avoid the political-social-religious persecutions of communist Cuba?
Have we forgotten the exodus from the Port of Camarioca (1965) and President Johnson’s compassionate speech to the nation at the foot of the Statue of Liberty, whereby he clemently extended political refugee status to Cubans? This ultimately led to Congress granting favored immigration status to those of us who were fleeing Communist Cuba via the Freedom Flights. What began with the exercise of the president’s executive powers culminated in the preferential immigration treatment that continues to be afforded to us to this day.
Have we forgotten the take-over of the Peruvian embassy in Havana on Good Friday 1980? Did not our brother and sisters of the Americas give us refuge because of our real fear and threat of violence by the Cuban Communist Castro regime?
Have we forgotten the exodus from the Port of Mariel and President Carter’s exercise of executive powers that allowed more than 130,000 Cubans to seek asylum in the United States, mostly by landing on the shores of Key West? I have not, for not only did I participate in the boatlift as one who tried to bring family to these shores, but I also had the honor and privilege of being one of 80 lead attorneys who represented the Mariel boat captains in U.S. v. Francisco Anaya.
Have we forgotten the exodus from the Bay of Havana by rafters and others in 1994? It was through the exercise of executive powers that President Clinton extended to us a preferential immigration status under what is presently termed as “wet foot versus dry foot.”
In 1963, St. John XXIII spoke to the world through his renown encyclical “Peace on Earth,” noting that “every human being has the right to freedom of movement and of residence within the confines of his own State. When there are just reasons in favor of it, he must be permitted to emigrate to other countries and take up residence there.”
And then there is the most recent statement from Pope Francis to the World Congress for the Pastoral Care of Migrants, at the conclusion of their Nov. 17-21 meeting in Rome: “Migrants, therefore, by virtue of their very humanity, even prior to their cultural values, widen the sense of human fraternity. At the same time, their presence is a reminder of the need to eradicate inequality, injustice and abuses. In that way, migrants will be able to become partners in constructing a richer identity for the communities which provide them hospitality, as well as the people who welcome them, prompting the development of a society which is inclusive, creative and respectful of the dignity of all.”
Let us all strive to find Jesus in the face of our brothers and sisters. He is there, so why deny it? Love one another as I have loved you. (Jn 13:34-35)
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