wfn.org | [ENS] Border issues call Episcopalians to action

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

Monday, August 22, 2005

Border issues call Episcopalians to action

By Pat McCaughan

ENS 082205-1

[ENS, Scottsdale, Arizona] -- Amid growing tensions over illegal
immigration
along the U.S.-Mexico border, a gathering of Episcopalians in
Scottsdale,
Arizona, August 19-20 called for comprehensive reform and urged people
of
faith everywhere to shift the public debate by claiming it as a human
right,
rather than a political issue.

About 100 people, some from as far away as New York, Chicago and Hawaii,
attended the second "Bishop's Initiative on Border Issues," designed to
educate and train congregations locally and, hopefully, nationally, said
the
Rev.. Carmen Guerrero, who is both Canon for Peace and Justice and
Multicultural Ministries in the Diocese of Arizona and National Jubilee
Officer at the Episcopal Church Center in New York City.

"This is not about politics, this is about human lives," said Guerrero.
"This is a theological and moral issue, especially for those of us who
claim
to be Christian. So many times we decide not to get involved because
something is 'political'. This issue is about a lot of things,
immigration
and perhaps immigration reform. It's about human rights, health care,
drugs,
labor laws. It's like an onion; you peel one layer and you cry. Then you
realize you have to peel another layer and then you cry some more."

Bishop Kirk Smith of Arizona said such gatherings are hopeful. "What's
been
really good is that the word is spreading. The challenge for the church
is
to present a well thought out alternative to negative media and public
opinion."

Earlier in the week, the governors of both New Mexico and Arizona
declared
states of emergency over illegal border traffic and crime and
unsuccessfully
urged their counterparts in California and Texas to follow suit. The
emergency declarations freed up more than $3 million in disaster aid for
local law enforcement.

"This isn't a Republican or a Democratic issue," said the Rev. John
Denaro,
staff officer for Church Relations and Outreach for Episcopal Migration
Ministries. "It's a human rights issue. I just hope the church can be
unified around a vision to address it. It's obscene that people are
dying 30
miles away while others just go about their daily lives as if nothing's
happening."

Added Peter Fabre, a parishioner at St. Andrew's Church in Glenville,
Arizona: "I'm a conservative Republican and that's not likely to change
anytime soon, but that's beside the point. This whole issue should be
depoliticized.. What we need is comprehensive immigration reform and to
focus on the fact that we are Christians and to draw upon the knowledge
that
Christ as a model transcends politics."

Deaths in the Desert

One by one, those who died while crossing the desolate Arizona-Mexico
border
this fiscal year were remembered aloud by conference-goers during August
19
evening prayers:

"Rosella Cruz Gonzales, 26-year-old female from Mexico, died in May of
this
year from dehydration, near Yuma."

"I ask your prayers for Number 140, unknown man, age unknown and place
of
birth unknown, who died June 17 of this year of hyperthermia, 1.8 miles
southwest of Silver Bell Mine"

By August 17, the death toll in border crossings was 246, up from last
year.. In the entire fiscal year October 1, 2003-September 30, 2004, an
estimated 233 such deaths were reported.

The names or numbers of the dead dropped heavily into the weighty
silence at
the Franciscan Renewal Center here. Some were as young as 15; others
were 53
and older-men, women and children. Many died of dehydration and
hyperthermia, victims of the desert's brutal heat. Still others faced
another kind of brutality -- dying of gunshot wounds, motor vehicle
accidents; blunt force trauma; a hanging death was reported. Some of the
dead carried no clues to their identities and were listed as unknown, by
numbers, rendering notification of relatives impossible.

"I met a man the other day in Chiapas who was looking for his sister,"
said
Deborah Noonan, delegations coordinator for BorderLinks, a
not-for-profit
organization that conducts travel seminars focusing on the issues of
Mexican
border communities. "She called him months ago. She was in Altar and
told
him she was going across. That was the last time he heard from her."

Noonan said she has led delegations from all over the world into Mexico.
"People farther away from it are always shocked by the poverty, but
their
hearts are touched by the generosity of the people. They realize people
are
crossing the border because they're desperate to feed their families and
there's no legal way for them to come."

The Most Rev. Martin Barahona, Primate of Central America and Bishop of
El
Salvador, said about 700 Salvadorans cross the border daily. Many are
victimized by corrupt coyotes who charge as much as $12,000 to take them
to
the U.S. Often, they are apprehended and deported. Worse, many are
disabled
while attempting to jump aboard trains, he said, sharing such stories in
a
video, Meridiano89.

"Our challenge as a church is to find a response, an orientation and
treat
them as God's children," he told the gathering. He said the Church in El
Salvador is creating a "love your country" campaign in addition to
supporting institutions offering immigration advice and helping youth
find
"hope opportunities" in their own country.

"But the socioeconomic reality is our country has a high level of
unemployment, a very low minimum wage -- 60-cents an hour -- with a high
cost of living," said Barahona. A proposed Central American Trade
Agreement
"will only bring more poverty to our country and the large transnational
companies will be the only ones who benefit," he added.

Praying the names and circumstances of the border deaths gives a human
face
to an often overlooked aspect of the illegal immigration debate,
Guerrero
said.

She compared it to the ritual of naming the murdered and the disappeared
during the war in El Salvador. "When the names of the dead were called
out,
people answered 'Presente' for them. The dead weren't there, but in a
sense,
they were and that's what we're doing," Guerrero told the gathering.

"As Christians, we believe in the communion of saints and we pray for
the
dead. They're with us. Some of us are here, some of us are there and
some in
the middle and some yet to come."

But U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton said he believes the numbers of deaths
in
the desert, based on Border Patrol reports in areas near Tucson and
Yuma,
and upon newspaper accounts, are vastly underreported.

"There are other deaths taking place, in Mexico, for example," said
Charlton, an Episcopalian. "There are an extraordinary number of
individuals
dying on that side of the border."

Charlton said Arizona shares 370 miles of border with Mexico, about
one-sixth of the total 1,950-mile U.S.-Mexico border. Last year, about
588,000 illegal immigrants were detained by the Border Patrol in
Arizona.
"That's over 50 percent of all the illegal aliens detained in the entire
country," Charlton said. "We are at the vortex, the center of this issue
and
I'm grateful to the Episcopal Church for beginning a dialogue about it."

Charlton said that law enforcement agencies, from the border patrol to
the
federal prison system, are woefully understaffed and ill-equipped to
stem
the rising tide of illegal immigration. They are able to prosecute only
those who have also committed felonies, such as trafficking in drugs or
humans, especially children. About 4,000 such detainees were prosecuted
last
year, he said.

Crossing the border illegally is a misdemeanor offense and those
apprehended
are simply deported, he said. Statistics regarding detainees may reflect
those who have been previously deported who are making another border
crossing attempt.

'Shifting the Public Debate'

Luis Gonzalez told the group that amnesty programs do work. In an
emotional
testimonial, he described being separated from his parents at seven
years
old in order to cross the border illegally from Mexico into the U.S.

He was given another name, "George," and told to practice what to say if
stopped by the border patrol. "We crossed the line sweating bullets," he
said tearfully.

"We weren't criminals; my parents were desperate for us to have an
American
education, more opportunities," he said. But he recalled a life lived in
the
shadows, always in fear of being discovered and deported. When he
graduated
high school, he was unable to apply to college without legal
documentation.
But the family received amnesty in 1996 and he subsequently graduated
from
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is now an engineer.

Petra Leija Falcon, lead organizer for the Pima County Interfaith
Council in
Tucson and the Arizona Interfaith Network, said change begins with
education
and by shifting the public debate.

"If you close your eyes and just listen to the public debate, it sounds
like
Mississippi all over again, in the days of the civil rights movement,"
said
Falcon, a community organizer for 15 years. "It's fear-based, it comes
from
a fear that there isn't enough. If we let them in, who'll be left out?"

"It's going to get worse, it's not going to get easier, the question is,
how
do we respond? Right now, it's beginning to look like Episcopalians,
Catholics, Presbyterians and Methodists here are galvanizing around this
issue, but is that enough? The real issue is, how do we change hearts
and
minds who don't feel what it's like to cross the desert when it's 130
degrees."

The Rev. Josie Beecher said feeling the overpowering heat of the day,
with
temperatures soaring around the 100-degree mark, brought her spiritually
closer to the challenges faced by many of her parishioners in the
Diocese of
Olympia who are undocumented.

"When I got off the plane and the heat wave hit me, it touched me on a
whole
different level," she said. "Especially when I've heard children in my
congregation who are eight years old talking about walking across the
desert. Every year, we celebrate the Day of the Dead and we name the
relatives. There's always someone's relative who died crossing the
frontier.
There are always friends and relatives who didn't make it. And there are
those who thought they were going to die and those whose faces glaze
over
and they don't want to talk about it."

Phillip Mantle, Province V Jubilee Officer, and a Chicago City College
employee, said he is planning a similar provincial conference for early
next
year, "because this isn't just a border issue, it's an interior issue.
People cross the border here, but they end up in Chicago and without
documentation they can't access any services. The church doesn't know
what
to do with them."

The Midwestern town is most affected currently with newly arrived
Sudanese
and Colombians, but he added that population projections indicate that
by
2010 more than 70 percent of the city will be Latino.

The Rev. Tom Buechele, vicar of St. John's, Bisbee, a border town,
called
for comprehensive immigration reform, a just trade agreement with
Mexico,
and economic development. He encouraged people to familiarize themselves
with the McCain-Kennedy "Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of
2005," as well as the Kyl-Cornyn "Comprehensive Enforcement and
Immigration
Reform Act of 2005," and to write their congressional leaders and talk
to
their families and friends.

"The border has always been a place of tension and even more so now. The
strain is almost palpable in Bisbee. It's not just the helicopters
flying
overhead; people live in fear. But the church has a great opportunity
here,"
said Buechele, who organized the first diocesan conference to examine
border
issues.

He said that last year, 54 million Mexicans visited and spent money
legally
in Arizona. "Shutting the border doesn't make any sense," he said,
adding:
"not to mention to damage it would cause to cross-border relationships
between churches and families."

He said that NAFTA, or the North American Free Trade Agreement, damaged
an
already fragile Mexican economy. "By the year 2012, the U.S. will need 3
million workers we don't have," he said, citing "Immigration Proposals
from
the Heartland," a report by Doris Meissner and others from the Chicago
Council on Foreign Relations, an independent forum for public learning
on
global affairs. "The shifting of the people of the world needs to be
realized. We don't need to shut the borders down. We don't need to
regressively think anti-immigration, but that's what's happening from
New
York to New Jersey to Arizona."

Beecher said that while the church is talking about the right issues,
more
needs to be done.

"It's time for the church as a whole, not just the Episcopal Church, to
be
the moral voice of the country," she said. "It's a role we've given
away.
The church is primarily saying that we need to help poor people, our
brothers and sisters who are dying trying to cross the border, that we
need
to be welcoming and concerned. What we're not saying is that the church
is
made up of people who have arrived in this country without legal
documentation, people who are being denied basic human rights. We the
church
must say that we the church are being denied our human rights and we
will
speak from our experience as church. So, the time has come for the
church to
say it, too, is illegal."

For more information about border issues or training, contact the Rev.
Carmen Guerrero, who is both Canon for Peace and Justice and
Multicultural
Ministries, Diocese of Arizona, and National Jubilee Officer at the
Episcopal Church Center at: cguerrero@episcopalchurch.org

-- The Rev. Patricia McCaughan is senior correspondent for the Episcopal
News Service and associate rector of St. Mary's Church in Laguna Beach,
California.