Lady Liberty weeps: America should continue to offer a safe harbor for immigrants
Episcopal News Service. February 9, 2008 [020908-02]
MaryAnn Sontag, Member of St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in Oklahoma City
As the winds come sweeping down the plains these days, the state of Oklahoma is sweeping out all undocumented immigrants with a mighty broom. The Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007 that went into effect November 1 establishes criminal penalties for harboring, sheltering or transporting the undocumented immigrants. It denies public benefits to such immigrants and requires businesses to use a citizenship verification system for new employees. The state lawmakers passed this law on the premise that illegal immigration was causing economic hardship and lawlessness in Oklahoma.
The journey to this new law was fueled by the events of 9/11, the momentum to have English designated as the official Oklahoma language and a growing illegal immigrant population (nearly 200 percent increase from 1990 to 2000, according to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service).
The reaction to this legislation is polarizing the population. Proponents are saying, "Go back; get out of our homeland," while the undocumented are frightened and either in hiding or fleeing to other states.
Morality is on both sides of this issue. Undocumented persons do use taxpayer funds meant for U.S. citizens, and yet, these immigrants have sought safe harbor in our state mainly for reasons of hunger and other basic human needs. Somewhere amidst the struggles of today, we have lost the meaning of the words on Lady Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
Four bishops in Oklahoma from the Catholic, Episcopal and Evangelical Lutheran faith communities have issued statements opposing anti-immigrant measures. They believe the new law "threatens the lives of some of our most vulnerable people." They call for a comprehensive policy that seeks to find avenues of legalization rather than punitive banishment. The Oklahoma Council of Churches, representing 16 Christian faiths, calls the law "a disastrous effort ... which instigates fear and prejudice."
I am new to Oklahoma, having moved five months ago from the East Coast. I am in favor of immigration reform: reform that is humane and in the best tradition of who we are as an American people. What has happened with the Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act here makes Lady Liberty cringe.
I recently spoke with the Rev. Leonel Blanco, the Episcopal priest for Santa Maria Virgen Mission. His flock of legal as well as undocumented parishioners is scared. He told reporters that, four months ago, this church was very full, but now the people are nervous. They don't like going out. This law and the violent, demeaning rhetoric that it has spawned has created a Gestapo mentality in Oklahoma. These mainly Latino immigrants are afraid to go to the grocery or the pharmacy because they believe that the state has "secret immigration police" watching and waiting to deport them as they shop for food or medicine. Church attendance at Father Blanco's parish has dropped by 50 percent for the same reason. Undocumented people are afraid to leave their homes, or they are fleeing to other more friendly states.
The undocumented immigrants I know are hardworking people who left countries to escape poverty and have a better, more humane life. They contribute to the economy through the purchase of goods and services, raise their families, send their children to school and attend church.
Most undocumented people are not the drug dealers or gang members, as the violent rhetoric would suggest. Many of their children are American-born and, therefore, American citizens.
I believe that immigration reform through a guest-worker program is a positive approach to a complicated problem. In the meantime, yes, secure our borders. Create a more streamlined means for citizenship.
The argument that many others come to America legally speaks to the middleor upper-middle-class immigrant with means and education. However, many of those who now seek our shores illegally want the same as our forefathers who founded this country. They desired an opportunity to be secure.
In the earlier days, it was security from religious persecution or government oppression, such as for my grandfather, who fled the Russian czar who took over his homeland of Lithuania. Today, the illegal immigrants want the security of a life out of poverty.
We must remember that our American history tells of Indians being ripped of their land by good and needy people. Our history also reveals wars on Mexican land that became our states of California and Texas. When we discuss illegal immigrant activity and undocumented people taking what is not theirs, we must be careful to remember some of our own history.
I am a retired public school principal who has served the children of this country for 31 years in five states with the help of many other devoted colleagues. My moral obligation was to serve all children who crossed my schoolhouse door. I served documented and undocumented immigrant children. They all deserved my best effort.
I wept with Muslim mothers on 9/11 who came to the school to tell me that they were not like the terrorists in the planes on that fateful day. I tried to assist parents whose partners wanted to kidnap their children to foreign countries. My school social worker did not ask for a green card when the school nurse discovered an abscessed tooth in the mouth of an undocumented five-year-old. We fed the immigrant child who came to school on Monday and told his teacher he hadn't eaten a hot meal since the school lunch on the previous Friday.
Mother Liberty's call is to offer a haven to the poor and oppressed. We tried to do that, and principals in Oklahoma and other states serve in the same way. My hope is that none of us will be forced to do otherwise.