The Faces of Immigration
Behind this complex and divisive issue are real people with wrenching stories. And many of them are Presbyterians.
 By Eva Stimson
About seven years ago a woman in Presbyterian pastor Gary Catterson’s church in Postville, Iowa, came to him with an unusual request: Could a group of Guatemalan Pentecostals use the church’s facilities for worship services? The woman taught English to immigrant workers at a local meatpacking plant, and some of them needed a place to worship.
The church session approved the request. For the next few years some 100 Guatemalans gathered at Community Presbyterian Church every Friday and Saturday evening, and sounds of lively music and preaching drifted out from the sanctuary.
The church didn’t ask for payment, but the Guatemalans insisted on showing their appreciation, with gifts ranging from handmade needlepoint to hard-earned cash — $3,000 in 2007, Catterson says.
“They supported our church. Every October they would give us a small gift and thank us in tears for letting them use our building.”
That all changed one day in May 2008, when federal immigration agents descended on the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in Postville and arrested 389 undocumented workers. And 58-year-old Catterson, a former police officer, saw a side of law enforcement as ugly as anything he had experienced in his first career patrolling Dallas, Texas, streets.
As a result, he and his church members and others in this small Midwestern town have added their voices to a growing chorus calling for comprehensive reform of the nation’s broken immigration system. It’s a chorus joined by Christians across the theological spectrum, including Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) members and congregations, bolstered by the statements of numerous General Assemblies.
Hoping for a better life: a Mexican child, symbolic of many others whose parents seek work across the border. Photo © Karl W. Hoffman.Catterson was driving to Ohio to pick up his father the day of the raid, so he missed the chaotic scene: helicopters circling over Postville as terrified workers were herded into buses, mothers crying and pleading for someone to care for children left behind, worried relatives pacing outside the plant, seeking information about those being detained.
Halfway to Ohio Catterson’s cell phone rang. It was then that he learned about the raid. Soon people from the church were calling, asking if they could open the church building so family members of those arrested would have a safe place to go. Many were too frightened to go home, afraid of being detained themselves.
For the next three nights volunteers stayed at the church with these families, along with several immigration lawyers who came from out of town to provide counsel to those arrested.
Community Presbyterian’s sanctuary was silent on Friday and Saturday evenings, since most of the Guatemalans who had worshiped there were among those arrested.
Looking back on the experience more than a year later, Catterson is angry about what the raid did to the town and its people. “Businesses are suffering,” he says. “Lots of houses are for sale. No one wants to come here.”
Most of the men arrested have been deported or jailed. Some of the women were released back into the community to care for their children while waiting to appear in court. But they have no income since they are not allowed to work, and they must wear electronic monitoring devices on their ankles. Some families returned to Guatemala; many are still separated. The meatpacking plant brought in temporary workers, but the raid and investigations into labor violations left it bankrupt and operating at partial capacity — a major blow to the town’s economy.
Some might say, “Well, these people broke the law. They are only getting what they deserve.”
But for Catterson, it’s more complicated. “I think the whole town knew [the workers] were undocumented,” he says. “It was one of those unspoken things.”
But some of the Guatemalans had lived peacefully in Postville for more than 10 years. “They had children in school; some actually bought houses. They were not here for any reason other than to create a life for their families,” Catterson says.
“I’ve had law enforcement experience. My boss always told me to enforce the law every day. With these people, the laws were not enforced for 10 or 12 years, and then all of a sudden ....” His voice trails off in frustration.
Since the raid, Community Presbyterian and other Postville churches have hosted vigils to raise awareness of immigration issues and pray for reform. It’s a role Catterson never envisioned when he surrendered his police officer badge to enter seminary.
In fact, he says of the ministry, “This is probably the toughest job I’ve ever done.”
Amnesty International reports that there are more than 30,000 immigrants in detention centers throughout the United States on any given day. These include children, pregnant women, elderly persons and entire families. Photo © Karl W. Hoffman.On a weekday morning at the national offices of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in Louisville, Julia Thorne talks with a visitor, while trying to ignore her buzzing phone.
Thorne, an attorney specializing in immigration law, has worked as manager of immigration issues and immigration counsel in the PC(USA)’s Office of the General Assembly since shortly after the 2004 General Assembly created her office. On a typical day she gets calls from three to five pastors needing help with immigration problems. Thorne estimates that since she began working for the church, she has fielded questions, offered legal advice or shared resources with people in at least 150 of the denomination’s 173 presbyteries.
She has visited church groups in places like Hazleton, Pa., which in July 2006 became the first town in the nation to pass an ordinance making it a crime to hire or rent property to “illegal aliens.” Drafted in response to the murder of a Hazleton citizen by undocumented immigrants with a history of gang activity, the law was struck down as unconstitutional by a federal judge, and appeals are working their way through the court system. Church leaders in Lehigh Valley Presbytery invited Thorne to come and help them grapple with the anti-immigrant backlash.
She has been in touch with people in Postville and other communities traumatized by immigration raids — including the roundup of 265 mostly Mexican workers at a beef processing plant in Greeley, Colo., in January 2007 and the arrest of 330 workers at a chicken processing plant in Greenville, S.C. Grants from Presbyterian Disaster Assistance to Plains and Peaks (Colorado) and Foothills (South Carolina) presbyteries are helping provide for the needs of the affected families.
Thorne is encouraged by the fact that raids have decreased under the administration of President Obama. She believes changes in the immigration system are coming, but worries that the voices of those pushing for comprehensive and compassionate reform may be drowned out by those favoring restrictive measures, such as building walls and deporting anyone here without the proper papers. Members of Congress say their phone calls are running 9–1 against a compassionate approach.
“Will Presbyterians step up and do the advocacy that is needed?” she wonders.
Hard at work: a Cambodian immigrant picking blueberries in Pennsylvania. Photo © Alan Pouge.Every two weeks or so 70-year-old Bill Wakefield, an elder at Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton, N.J., drives 40 miles to the Elizabeth Detention Center, an unmarked building surrounded by warehouses. Entering a spartan waiting area, he gives the receptionist the number of the person he wants to visit. Then he is allowed to pass through a metal detector and electronically secured doors and talk by telephone, through plexiglass, to one of the 320 immigrants being held here while they wait to be granted asylum or to be deported.
He is not allowed to enter the dormitories, where detainees dressed in prison jumpsuits eat at tables bolted to the floor, and guards stand watch as they use toilets and showers without doors or curtains.
Amnesty International (AI) reports that there are more than 30,000 immigrants in detention centers throughout the United States on any given day. These include children, pregnant women, elderly persons and entire families. The average stay was 37 days in 2007, according to Immigration Customs and Enforcement, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, but AI has documented cases in which people were detained as long as four years.
“CCA” on a small sign outside the Elizabeth Detention Center indicates that it is run by the Correction Corporation of America, a private, for-profit contractor hired by immigration authorities. About two-thirds of immigrant detainees are housed with convicted criminals in state and county jails.
Wakefield, who works as a consultant on engineering and construction projects, has made regular visits to the detention center for four years, ever since learning about it from speakers at his church. Until a few months ago he came to see John, a 35-year-old man from Kashmir, India. A convert from Islam to Christianity, John fled Muslim-dominated Kashmir last summer after years of persecution culminated in the assassination of the friend who had led him to faith in Christ.
He arrived in the United States with a valid visa, intending to enroll in a Christian school in Colorado, Wakefield says. But officials at the Newark airport denied him entry on a technicality and threatened to send him back to India. Fearing for his life, John applied for asylum. He was taken in chains to the detention center, where he stayed for nine months.
In March John was released under Wakefield’s supervision. Wakefield found him temporary housing, first at Princeton Theological Seminary and then in a facility of Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church. But John is still waiting for a final decision on whether he can remain in the country.
Wakefield and others have formed an immigration advocacy group at Nassau Presbyterian to educate church members about immigration issues. He also helped organize an immigration task force for the Presbytery of New Brunswick, which encourages members of other congregations to visit the detention center and to provide legal and financial assistance to asylum seekers.
As he got to know John and some of the other detainees, Wakefield marveled that they were not angrier about their treatment. He says John told him that he didn’t like being put in chains, “but when he was placed in the detention center he felt safe for the first time in years.”
In his office on the floor below Julia Thorne’s in Louisville, Angel Suarez-Valera keeps track of the PC(USA)’s burgeoning immigrant fellowships. Originally from Venezuela, Suarez knows personally many people affected by U.S. immigration policies. For example, there’s the African pastor of a newly formed congregation in the Midwest who faces possible deportation because a lawyer didn’t file the correct paperwork for a visa.
“This is a vibrant, growing congregation that this pastor has developed,” Suarez says. Now there are two options: remain in the United States without documents, which means the presbytery cannot legally pay the pastor’s salary; or leave a spouse and children and go back to Africa.
When talking about immigration, Suarez gently but firmly makes the following distinction: immigrants may be “undocumented,” but they are not “illegal.”
“Illegal refers to an act,” he insists. “As a human being you are not illegal.”
“Crossing a border without proper documentation is an illegal act,” he explains. But it’s also “a natural, human act” to seek a better financial situation, to flee war or persecution, or to seek to live in the same country as one’s immediate family. An immigration system that isn’t working, that is full of delays and complex requirements, sometimes “forces people to do illegal acts.”
Suarez admits he has no good answers for people like the African pastor. But then he smiles. “We are people of faith,” he says. “Sometimes we challenge the reality. We believe in miracles.”
Hector Rodriguez, PC(USA) associate for Latino congregational support, also finds his work increasingly affected by immigration issues. Rodriguez, who played in orchestras in Puerto Rico before being ordained as a Presbyterian minister, says slyly, “God called me from the night club to the pulpit.”
Now he offers support and encouragement to 340 Hispanic congregations and missions in the PC(USA), encompassing some 50,000 people. He estimates that there are about 400 Latino pastors in the denomination, and that about 85 percent of them are U.S. citizens. The rest are either trying to resolve problems with their immigration papers or working here on 5-year “religious” visas.
He says he knows of at least two PC(USA) congregations in which 100 percent of the members are undocumented.
Estimates based on census data put the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States at about 12 million. But Rodriguez says information from those “in the streets” leads him and others to believe the number is much higher — 15 million or more, about half of whom are Hispanic/Latino.
In her writing and speaking to church groups, Thorne points out that Scripture is full of stories about people who moved to other lands, fleeing wars or famine, or following God’s call (Abram in Genesis 12, for example). Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt as refugees to save the life of the baby Jesus. Old Testament laws and prophets include numerous calls to welcome the stranger.
Immigrant fellowships are a growing edge in the PC(USA), says Thorne. Many of these groups are products of Presbyterian mission work in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Now they are bringing their faith with them to the United States, and in their fledgling congregations are numerous people suffering because of injustices and inconsistencies in U.S. immigration policy. Their plight should concern all Presbyterians.
“Unless we start to respond to this,” Thorne insists, “we’re not going to be relevant.”
In an article published in Reflections (Yale Divinity School, Fall 2008), she wrote: “We need truly to seek to become a new community much like the one described in Revelation 7:9, ‘And behold, I saw a great multitude which no one could count, of all nations, tribes, peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.’”
Indeed, says Thorne, there is much we can learn from the strangers in our midst. “Can we figure out creative ways to share the parts of our culture that are wonderful with each other? Can we sometimes change and incorporate the ways of others that might
be better?”
Eva Stimson is editor of Presbyterians Today.
Creed for Immigrants
By Jose Luis Casal
I believe in almighty God, who guided his people in exile and in exodus, the God of Joseph in Egypt and of Daniel in Babylon, the God of foreigners and immigrants.
I believe in Jesus Christ, a displaced Galilean, who was born away from his people and his home, who had to flee the country with his parents when his life was in danger, and who upon returning to his own country had to suffer the oppression of the tyrant Pontius Pilate, the servant of a foreign power. He was persecuted, beaten and finally tortured, accused and condemned to death unjustly. But on the third day, this scorned Jesus rose from the dead, not as a foreigner but to offer us citizenship in heaven.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the eternal immigrant from God’s kingdom among us, who speaks all languages, lives in all countries, and reunites all races.
I believe that the church is the secure home for all foreigners and believers who constitute it, who speak the same language and have the same purpose.
I believe that the communion of saints begins when we accept the diversity of the saints. I believe in the forgiveness which makes us all equal, and in the reconciliation which identifies us more than does race, language or nationality. I believe that in the Resurrection, God will unite us as one people in which all are distinct and all are alike at the same time.
I believe in life eternal beyond this world, where no one will be an immigrant but all will be citizens of God’s Kingdom that has no end.
Amen.
Used by permission from Fiesta Cristiana: Recursos para la Adoracion/Resources for Worship, Joel N. Martinez and Raquel M. Martinez, editors (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003).
For study and action
Julia Thorne, manager of immigration issues and immigration counsel, Office of the General Assembly, (888) 728-7228, ext. 5372.
Presbyterians for Just Immigration — a network of people interested in how immigration issues affect their communities, churches and presbyteries. For more information contact Dana Dages (888) 728-7228, ext. 5202.
Common myths about immigration, by Julia Thorne
Immigration Issues — General Assembly statements, legal and worship resources, ways to get involved, how to organize an immigration task force, links to related Web sites
Interfaith Immigration and Faith and immigration —sites of two faith-based coalitions, made up of groups across the theological spectrum working for comprehensive immigration reform
Immigration Forum — site of the National Immigration Forum, an immigrant advocacy organization, with information about U.S. immigration policy, current legislation, and other resources
The Washington Office of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is encouraging Presbyterians to write to Congress in support of the following:
DREAM Act (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors), which would clear a path toward legal immigration status for children of undocumented immigrants, enabling them to attend college and serve in the U.S. military.
Reuniting Families Act, which would reunite family members who have been separated for years due to a backlogged, broken immigration system.
The 2008 Assembly addressed human trafficking, detention centers and the treatment of immigrants. The 2004 and 2006 Assemblies called for a comprehensive legalization program for immigrants living and working in the United States. |
