Welcoming the stranger
“I was a stranger and you invited me in.” Matthew 25:35
Amir is an Egyptian who traveled to the U.S. on at least two occasions, with proper temporary visas, to study English. Over time, he decided he no longer wished to follow traditional ways, for which he received serious threats of bodily harm from his family and home village in Egypt.
Amir returned to the United States and requested asylum from persecution. He spent five months in the Elizabeth, N.J., facility for immigration detainees where Maryknoll affiliates heard his story. None of the over 300 detainees at the facility, which is run by the Corrections Corporation of America, have criminal records; about half are asylum seekers and the others are undocumented immigrants who were picked up by federal agents. Many are from Asia, Africa and Latin America; other detainees are from Eastern Europe and the Middle East, all places where economic hardship and violent conflict are pervasive.
Amir’s attorney was able to help him receive asylum based on his credible fear of persecution, but a government prosecutor immediately challenged the judge’s ruling. While the appeal was pending, Amir was able to live for over a year in a sanctuary program, study, hold a job (with a proper work permit) and pay taxes. But after 14 months, despite acknowledging that he was threatened if he returned home, the courts reversed Amir’s asylum ruling, and he was held again at the detention facility and forbidden to contact his attorney.
After seven months of confinement, Amir said he would rather return to Egypt and “die once, rather than die here a little bit every day.” He was deported to Egypt, but eventually secured passage to Canada, where he lives and works today.
Amir is one of an estimated 191 million migrants in the Americas, Asia and Africa. They include political and economic migrants, refugees from war and civil conflict, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons. Three percent of the world’s population -- about one in 35 persons -- is a migrant.
In their 2003 pastoral letter “Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope,” the Catholic bishops of Mexico and the United States enunciate five principles of Catholic social teaching applicable to migration: 1) persons have the right to find opportunity in their home land; 2) persons have the right to migrate to support themselves and their families; 3) sovereign nations have the right to control their borders, but are obliged to accommodate migrant flows; 4) refugees and asylum seekers should be afforded protection; and 5) the human dignity and human rights of undocumented migrants should be respected.
Important policy goals include:
• Implement just and compassionate national immigration policies that counter punitive and isolationist tendencies, that recognize the importance of global solidarity in an intensely polarized world and that respect the inherent dignity and human rights of all migrants and asylum seekers, documented and undocumented alike.
• End the use of workplace raids, and stop the practice of deporting parents of under-age U.S.-born children.
• Give urgent attention to the root causes of involuntary migration, especially war and economic injustice.
• Definitively end human trafficking, and provide protective and rehabilitation services for trafficked persons.
• Protect refugees and asylum seekers and reverse laws and policies that lead to their incarceration.
• Ratify and implement the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, and support the creation of a Permanent Forum on Migration Issues within the UN as a space for ongoing dialogue and policy formulation among governments, migrants, non-governmental organizations and the private sector.
Questions for candidates:
1. What would comprehensive immigration reform look like in your administration?
2. Would you support the ratification of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families
3. What steps would you take to stop the exploitation of migrant workers and the anti-migrant actions and attitudes in this country and around the world?
4. What would you do to stop trafficking in human persons?
5. What do you feel is the obligation of wealthy nations toward migrants? What would you do to support development efforts in poor countries that might reduce the disparity between wealthy and poor nations that drives many to take perilous journeys across borders?
Links for more information
Justice for Immigrants, a project of the U.S. Catholic bishops
Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform
U.S. Committee for Refugees and Migrants