The Working Catholic: Immigration by Bill Droel

 

The immigrant “can sense that the United States is of two minds,” writes Hector Tobar of the University of California in Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation (Farrar, Straus, 2023). “Like the indentured servants, the Poles, the Germans and the Chinese people of other centuries, she knows there are factory owners and affluent families on the other side of the fence or the ocean who really want her to make it across… She knows that she has something that is prized on the other side.” At the same time the “walls, barbed wire and restrictive immigration laws announce they hate her kind.”

A country by definition must have borders. A phrase like open borders, if taken literally, erases the existence of nation states. The trick is to maintain an orderly system so that tourists, students, temporary workers, immigrants and refugees can safely enter a country and by their labor, knowledge and consumption they can contribute to their surroundings.

The current number of foreign-born people living in our country is the highest it has been in about 100 years; 45million by one estimate, reports Idrees Kahloon in The New Yorker (6/12/23). Many are immigrants who have become full-fledged legal U.S. citizens (about 970,000 within the past 12 months). Other foreign-born residents are guest workers (in Silicon Valley, in hospitals, in vineyards and on farms) and students (in technical fields, medical research and business) and others are immigrant/refugees--those who are in the legal process and those who have drifted into society without status.

The current influx actually began over 60 years ago when Congress changed its immigration limit and its general ban on those from Asia, details Dexter Filkins, also writing in The New Yorker (6/19/23). Our society’s need for more skilled and manual laborers attracts foreigners. More arrive under our policy of family preference or chain migration by which one immigrant can assist family members. Several factors push families toward the U.S., including drug violence, natural disasters, a bad economy at home, oppressive politics, the profitable smuggling/trafficking business (coyote cartels) and more.

Arrivals in the U.S., as Hector Tobar describes, have always encountered nativism. Some current U.S. residents say that their life would be better if immigrants were not unfairly given social services. Some residents also say that their own ancestors had to learn English, but that today’s arrivals don’t do so. They also say that new arrivals take away jobs that longer-standing residents would like to have.

  Data can counter these points, but the objections are not really about what they are about. The concern about jobs, for example, is only valid for a limited time in a specific place where “cheap labor can hold down wages for some workers,” says Filkins. However, the demand for employees in our country far exceeds the current supply. In the bigger picture immigration has no effect on jobs or wages. It is employment sectors that set wage scales and it is free trade and tax policies that send jobs overseas. Yet no one opposed to today’s immigrants is persuaded by the facts.

Migrants and refugees crossing our country’s southern border are resented more than well-educated technicians and doctors and trades people arriving from Asia or Eastern Europe, though each foreigner encounters nativism.

“Determining the exact number [of refugees is] remarkably difficult,” Filkins explains. There are possibly 11million undocumented people in the U.S. today; not all of whom intend to stay or will be allowed to stay. Even now our government does not know how many migrants it has sent back. The legal process for entry is backlogged and caught-up in conflicting court rulings. There are over two million pending cases just for those who claim refugee status. They are legally entitled to wait in the U.S. for a hearing on their case, but they have no right to a public defender. The wait time for the initial hearing is now five years. If the decision is unfavorable to the refugee, they can appeal. The wait time for that appeal hearing is another five years.

Reform of our dysfunctional immigration/migration system is, as any objective observer realizes, slow-going. A policy of exclusion, Filkins explains, is impractical. No matter how big a wall is built, people are not deterred from fleeing misery and staking their hope on our beautiful country. Total exclusion also damages the U.S. economy plus betrays the story of our country and it is inhumane. Three parts must come together simultaneously for acceptable reform. 1.) Tougher boarder security. 2.) More funding for local police in states like Texas and Arizona plus in cities that welcome migrants; more social services and processing assistance; more immigration judges. 3.) Better legal opportunities for immigrants, enforced fairly.

At the moment both Republican and Democrat leaders tolerate the frustrating chaos because they can blame one another. Additionally, Democrats and Republicans share the ambivalence of our citizenry. They want more immigration because it bolsters U.S. productivity. They want less immigration because more of it fuels resentment and politicians get the blame.

A final consideration: No matter the administrative chaos and the political muddle of the moment, there is an ethical obligation to assist the immigrants/migrants among us. To be continued…

 

Droel serves the board of National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629)

God, Make Me a Channel of Disturbance: The “Reverse St. Francis Prayer”

 

Faith Community Jericho Walk to support immigrants

at the Milwaukee ICE office (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) 

 every Thursday, 9:00 a.m. 

God, make me a channel of disturbance.

Where there is apathy, let me provoke.

Where there is compliance, let me bring questioning.

Where there is silence, may I be a voice.

Where there is too much comfort and too little action,

grant disruption.

Where there are doors closed and hearts locked,

grant the willingness to listen.

When laws dictate and pain is overlooked . . .

When tradition speaks louder than need . . .

Grant that I may seek rather to do justice than to talk about it.

Disturb us, O God,

to be with, as well as for, the alienated;

to love the unlovable as well as the lovely.

God, make me a channel of disturbance.

[author unknown]

 

"The Silliness -- and Clear and Present Danger -- of Today's SCOTUS: from the Daily Meditations by Matthew Fox (July 7, 2023)

 We are meditating on justice as a spiritual virtue and we are examining a particularly stunning action of the recent Supreme Court.  This court just passed a law saying it’s okay for a gay-hating religious believer who is a businessperson to deny a gay couple her service. 

But it turns out that the person named in the lawsuit, Stewart, never asked the plainiff for her services as a web-designer because he is not getting married and furthermore he is not gay.  He has stepped up ad said he never approached her since he himself is a web designer and would not need her services, and because he has been happily married to a woman for 15 years.

   Says one commentator:

Smith is so motivated by hatred of LGBTQ+ people that she invented an imaginary grievance, lied about it repeatedly through the various tiers of the court system, and eventually got license to deny service to a gay couple who doesn’t, technically, exist.*   Thus the Supreme Court, all decked out in its black finery and aristocratic self-importance, bathed in its solemnity and righteous black robes, took on this case without checking on whether the party involved was real or not.  Is this a Mickey Mouse supreme court or what?  Silliness, corruption, aristocracy (“let them eat cake”) and stupidity reign.   Six judges got suckered into legalizing a more-than-stupid precedent in their eagerness to support homophobia and religious prejudice.  Smith’s lawyers, demonstrating no shame (fascism rarely demonstrates either shame or a sense of humor), shrugged their shoulders: “No one should have to wait to be punished by the government to challenge an unjust law,” said one.    The conclusion?  It’s okay to invent a grievance and make up adversaries and go to certain courts and win.  Is this Supreme Court now a game, a political puppet show?  And those pulling the strings of six puppets?  I think we know.    What follows is neither humorous nor silly.  It is a dangerous “license to hate.” Can an atheist businessman refuse to serve Christians?  Can a liberal refuse to serve republicans, a Muslim refuse to serve Jews--or vice versa?  Can a gay busnessman refuse to serve (homophobic Christians?)  A slippery legal slope indeed. Said one legal scholar:  "This ruling blows a gaping hole in priior protections from discrimination" including race and religion and offers a "green light" to any business owners wanting to refuse service.  Where's the justice in a court like this?

The Working Catholic: Experience Counts by Bill Droel

 Catholic philosophers of the mid-20^th century (the Personalists) improved upon an older top-down notion of truth. Yes, truth comes from God. However, revelation does not come entirely from above. God’s truth (the Incarnation) is for all time embedded in human experience. The newer approach appreciates that God’s truth arises from and corresponds to real, important questions within our daily lives.

For many years Catholicism assumed that God’s truth came down from on high. Then, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it was interpreted and proclaimed by way of the Church, through our bishops. This approach rightly meant that standards were fixed. However, the certitude of its interpretation presumed that a few people could know the full, static will of God. The interpretation sometimes delved into quite arcane matters, using technical terms and distinctions foreign to common people.

Our society currently adheres to an opposite view of truth. It is called utilitarian relativism or cost-benefit analysis. Truth in our society depends on the perception of an individual or on a circle of executives or a team of news editors or a vocal group of students or some trend among celebrities. Standards depend on the situation and the estimated outcome. For all its popularity, relativism is unsustainable. It favors opportunists who play the short-term game. It leaves too much to individual interpretation. It can easily define deviancy down.

The mid-20^th century philosophers who improved our understanding of God’s revelation did not endorse relativism in any way. The new bottom-up approach does not mean that truth is derived from feelings or even from a thoroughly audited vote or any other type of soft relativism.  Faithful to Scripture, the bottom-up approach compliments the responsibility of bishops to teach the truth.

  In summary, Christianity’s former bias toward abstractions, prototypes, blueprints, static policies, previous absolute formulae, cookie-cutter solutions, standard procedures, preset rules, protocol, agency policy and old-time programs now must consider real life experience. The new approach warns church leaders to abandon their older, tiresome habit of answering questions that no one asks. The new approach celebrates creativity, research, expansion, complexity, dynamism and, what Pope Francis calls “a culture of encounter,” one-to-one and group-to-group dialogue across neighborhoods, cities, ethnicities, ages and genders. An accumulation of experience combined with sustained reflection improves our understanding of God’s truth, says the newer approach.

A substantial number of baptized Catholics now reject the church. Among other reasons, many do so because the church’s presentation of God’s truth does not resonate with them. To repeat: This is not to say that the content of the older presentation is wrong. The disconnection is because church leaders often insist on a method and terminology that is foreign to young adults. For their part, young adults don’t bother to construct an alternative spiritual method and language for our time.

A starting place, in my opinion, is the discovery of God’s truth as contained in music, drama, science, engineering, sex, commerce and other so-called worldly activities. Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471) is the author of the still popular The Imitation of Christ. Though parts of this book might be helpful, its bias (and that of several contemporary Christian teachers) must be rejected. God “instructs [us] to despise earthly things, to loath present things,” Imitation of Christ advises. No. God from all eternity has been at ease with human joy and striving. God’s church cannot therefore be aloof from or opposed to the world. The secular is sacred in a real sense.

A church that relates to the deep concerns of young adults cannot be equated only with clergy and other church employees. The church is all of us who go about doing our best on the job, in the community and for our family. The church is those of us who want to have a meaningful life; to put our questions into a context. The church is two friends who meet at the diner and share their sorrow, frustration, joy and insight. Our own experience contains some of God’s truth. How do we process that experience? Where do we find regular forums in which faith in daily life is explored? What language is there for us to take our isolated incidents and frame them into meaningful experience? Where are the storytellers to help us?

To be continued…

Droel edits INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a newsletter about faith and work.