Forget the orange
jumps suits and sandals, the uniformed armed guards, the sterile locked room… because
for a couple of hours it is Beth-El Sanctuary.
You can sense Father Abraham’s spirit of faith supporting action.
Once a month, Joanne and I visit the Kenosha
Detention center for immigrants. It’s a cleansing but overwhelming
experience. The visiting program, the
Interfaith Committee for Detained Immigrants, is sponsored and run by the Mercy
sisters of Chicago.
The prisoners are marched into the room and
we sit around tables for discussion. My
first impression is – they are young men - these are just kids – what are they
doing here?
The discussions are serious – do you have
family here – do you expect to be deported – what about your children? There is not much Joanne and I can do; I
often try to lighten the conversation and sometimes it’s an embarrassing
failure. A couple of weeks before
Christmas we were talking to an inmate named Nicholas and a couple of
others. They talked about their
families. With an attempt at humor I
said,
How
can we celebrate Christmas when Nichols is in jail?
Get it – St. Nick? No one laughed including
Joanne. I thought I’d try again when our
supervisor came to our table. She
listened to the ‘joke’ – tears came to her eyes, and she walked away. To see Dads locked in prison at Christmas
time is just painfully sad; a poor attempt at humor doesn’t help. As always we prayed – faith and hope of
liberation were still there despite imprisonment caused by of a broken
immigration system.
“From the depths I call to you
Yahweh, Lord listen to my call for help…” Psalm 130
When the prisoners come to the table we
introduce ourselves. A young beardless man
presented himself:
I
am Inocensio.
Yes,
I said – as everyone, but what is your
name?
Inocensio, (he said again– I got it)
I’m
Bill - good to meet you.
Inocencio
had signed deportation papers, but wants to see his mother before he leaves for
his home country. She is in Chicago and
dying of cancer. The Mercy Sisters
promised to help. We prayed.
“Yahweh, be my judge! I go my way in my innocence, My trust in
Yahweh never wavers.” Psalm 26
I talked to the Center’s Chaplain, who is
Muslim, about the dispute over prayer times at Ariens Manufacturing in
Brillion, WI. Muslim workers from
Somalia walked off the job because of restrictions on prayer. The chaplain was clearly moved. He said he would do the same as the workers
if he were in a similar situation. “To
pray is who I am – it’s a matter of identity.”
There are no prayer restrictions at the detention center.
“O God, you are my God – for you I
long! For you my body yearns, for you my soul thirsts.” Psalm 63
I find it difficult to go to the immigration
prison; I couldn’t do it alone, but it is a valuable religious experience. It’s a time of energizing awareness – “concientizacion”
in Spanish. Prayer, justice and faith
are intertwined. All the motivation a person might need in the struggle - jihad
- to change the cruel and unjust immigration system is right there at Beth –
El.
“To
Yahweh belong earth and all it holds, the world and all who live in it; Yahweh
founded it on the seas, based it firmly on over the rivers.” Psalm 24
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