A couple thoughts on the Migrant Caravan moving through Central American and Mexico toward our border…
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My heart is heavy and saddened as I watch so many compassionate people talk about this group of human beings in such dehumanizing ways. I understand the fear. Of course we need to protect our children. I get that we have limited resources. Yes, migrants have to enter the country legally. I just don’t think these concerns are near as connected to this migrant caravan as they are to our collective enslavement to fear and misinformation. Rather than be moved by a commitment to understand and care for the “least and the last” we are being stirred into a frenzy of self-protection that is compromising our collective soul. It’s sad. But we can be healed.
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Many of you may remember the last Migrant Caravan that got alot of news a couple years ago. I was there in Tijuana to welcome them when they stepped off the bus. Who did I meet? Exhausted and scared grandma’s, momma’s, daddy’s, babies and young kids traveling alone holding out a sliver of hope that they might have a future worth living for. This wasn’t a community of people that WANTED to flee their countries…they had no choice. No one would want to go on the journey they are on. Months of jumping on buses, trains, walking with kids on their back, corrupt police and gangs exploiting their vulnerability. 80% of women who go on this journey are sexually exploited in some way. As to this caravan, if women know they can travel with the protection of a group, of course, they are going to do that. THEY ARE NOT COMING TO TAKE AWAY THE AMERICAN DREAM. They are simply trying to have a chance at life.
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Some might say, “But they should come legally!” Yes, they should. And they are. They are coming to our southern border to walk through the port of entry and seek asylum. That is NOT ILLEGAL, but a central function to the core values of the United States. Now, there are always some who are so desperate (and often misguided by organized crime) that they try to cross the border illegally. Whether some in this caravan choose to do that, I have no idea, but having sat with migrants considering an illegal crossing, I can assure you it is not something they want to do…it is pure desperation.
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If we are going to engage with this crisis with any kind of integrity and humanity (not to mention faith convictions that require us to care for the foreigner/stranger), we have to ask WHY they are migrating in the first place. What is it they are running from? What could be so bad that they are literally having to choose which children to take and which to leave behind? I’ve talked to mothers of multiple children who had to flee violence in Central American and were forced to CHOOSE which kids could actually make the journey and which couldn’t. They knew this was their ONLY chance of survival and hoped to one day send for the ones they had to leave behind. The level of despair and heartbreak in their eyes is indescribable. A simple study of the history of Central America will not only give us hints as to what these people are fleeing, it will point a finger back at ourselves as participants in the destabilization of the region back in the 1980’s. Violence and economic desperation don’t come out of nothing. We have to become students who ask the story behind the story behind the story. The fact that our administration is threatening these countries by taking away funding is short sighted and will only perpetuate the instability.
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No number of talking points will change our hearts and minds. We have to get close to those in crisis. We need to be in proximity. We need to share tables and stories. And, in a country filled with immigrants, we can. We just have to choose love over fear and curiosity over critique. Let’s allow relationship to lead the way and the Spirit to guide our steps. For those of us who follow Jesus, let’s remember that he didn’t call us to be safe, he called us to be faithful. Now is our time.
Published by Jon Huckins
Jon is a speaker, writer and peacemaking trainer who has a Master’s Degree from Fuller Theological Seminary in Theology and Christian Ethics. He is currently working on a PhD in Theology and Political Ethics at Vrije University Amsterdam. He lives in San Diego with his wife, Jan, three daughters (Ruby, Rosie & Lou) and one son (Hank) where they co-lead an intentional Christian community seeking to live as a reconciling presence in their neighborhood. The whole family loves to swim and surf any chance they get.
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Thoughtful piece, and hits home for me as a believer. I guess the question I struggle with is, do we have the resources to become the repository for all of these people? We are already a country with massive debts and deficits. How do we pay for a massive influx of destitute people when we are already stretched thin financially, hurting future generations of Americans with our spending habits? Christ said we will always have the poor, so we know that is going to be the case regardless. So there is no getting rid of the poverty they are escaping – at least not in this life.
So, where do the resources come from?
Hello Jon,
Thank you for writing and sharing your heart & mind-felt convictions on this troubling and very serious issue. Man’s inhumanity to man never ceases to vex and abhor. We serve a God who authors our collective macrocosm and microcosm, and His ways are not our ways, and there is relief and rest in that Truth. I’m a white mother of 3 living in Colorado, but was born, grew up and married, and worked and raised young children in and around immigrant communities in southern California. I understand the polarization of these issues.
This Caravan breaks my heart: the desperate reasons they’re fleeing, and the thought of what will happen when they arrive. It will bring out the worst in too many people, but I also know it has the potential to bring out the very best in as many or more. I agree that it’s an upside down kingdom, and those on the underbelly of empire are far more likely to be the Lord’s protagonists than those of us in positions of comfort and power.
Knowing and believing that Truth, a practical question remains: how should our country of privilege and power actually meet the significant short term and long term needs of these thousands when we have so many, many more thousands on the inside of our borders whose short and long term needs are not yet adequately met? I’m thinking beyond the question of IF they should be admitted and given asylum, and trying to calculate what to do and how to do it once they’re here. They all need medical care, food, housing, trauma therapy and eventually significant education, language acquisition and job training. Where are the resources coming from to support that in mass, and not only in mass for this current caravan, but for the inevitable caravans that will follow if the world sees that entrance is granted? Are our southern border cities prepared for this? Are the cities a little further north prepared?
It seems inhumane to keep these dear and troubled families who have risked everything trapped as political pawns at other borders waiting for mercy, but it also seems inhumane to take in people we can’t adequately care and provide for. They will need beds, and blankets, and bathrooms, and a legal and safe space in which to sleep. We have too many thousands and thousands throughout our country for whom we ought to better care for by equipping them to first better care for themselves, before we take in many thousands more with the same needs. I realize such sentiment doesn’t address or resolve the very real and pressing needs that are literally pressing at borders right now, but the very temporary relief of asylum is not a real solution either, and mostly trades out one kind of material poverty for another.
Asylum could provide initial safety which would bring immeasurable relief, and these people certainly need and deserve that, but should laws and public policy really be so shortsighted? The world is fickle, and it often wants to live at the level it perceives America living (as if we all live at “that” level), but if we were to send UN sanctioned delegations to Central America to help them clean up political corruptions and crime, and establish better infrastructure so as to put them on the trajectory that leads to better living and prevent their citizens’ needing to flee, the world would also be outraged at our hyper-nationalism. We’d be harshly criticized for arrogantly imposing our ideals and creating pseudo-democracies which can’t be supported or sustained, and would likely create even larger problems.
Jon, your article and response to the Caravan with people’s lives in the balance resonates. Deeply. I agree that we’re not called to be safe, we’re called to be faithful, but I confess that I’m not clear what constitutes “faithful” in these matters. God places people in my daily path, and calls me to faithfulness and compassion with eyes to see and ears to hear. He calls me to stewardship of the resources in my care, and in strife, it’s necessary to place the oxygen mask over my nose and mouth before the nose and mouth of others, so that I can remain useful in assisting and caring for others.
These dear 7,000 will not be the only 7,000 needing the care and protection of our country. Do we not have a much greater chance of better serving the needs of the world from a nationally stable and oxygenated posture? I regret that such a conclusion sounds self-serving, but our human condition as fallen and sinful souls necessitates that all over the world, humanity lives in homes with doors that lock, and we have almost always lived in countries with mostly closed national borders. At the risk of sounding like a smart ass, which is not my intent, if we’re asking for open borders, are we not also asking citizens to live and sleep with open doors?
There is a disproportionate distribution of resources in this world; it’s unfair and too often ruthless. Opening our borders to every deserving caravan will not create fairness nor right the scales, and over time will further destabilize our national efforts to be part of a solution.
I find no personal satisfaction in my own conclusion. Neither opening nor keeping the border closed offers a satisfying or lasting solution, although it does strengthen my own convictions to better care for immigrants and others in need already within our borders, as well as continuing to financially support children and families in other countries.
Jon, I don’t know the work and ministry of Global Immersion well, but from your heart felt and insightful words, and a brief perusal of the website, you’re not only seeking to serve the Lord as the hands and feet of Christ, but have indeed been loving hands and serving feet.
It’s encouraging to know of others who are wrestling with issues which are profoundly shaping the lives of people in turmoil. Fully knowing that this could be mocked as no solution at all, I recognize that God is the Author of all things justice and mercy, and I don’t for even a minute pretend to know His will in this instance, so I will better care for immigrants and others in my path, be a better steward of what I’ve been given, and humbly pray for those in positions of power and responsibility.
Blessings to you and your staff,
Kristina Wright