Migration Ministries Director Urges Church to Advocate Refugee Rights
Episcopal News Service. February 24, 1995 [95036]
David Skidmore, Communications officer for the Diocese of Chicago.
(ENS) As public sentiment mounts against illegal immigrants, the Episcopal Church's outreach agency for refugees is marshaling its forces to counteract an emerging bias against all immigrants.
In a hard-hitting address to 50 diocesan refugee coordinators meeting in suburban Chicago February 7-12, Richard Parkins, director of Episcopal Migrations Ministries (EMM), challenged the coordinators to be "a moral sensitizing force" that alerts their communities and congregations to a worldwide refugee crisis that has forced millions from their homes. Diminished public support toward immigrants and the intractability of the social and political upheaval that has spawned the crisis, he said, should not be excuses to sit on the sidelines.
"Our perplexity should not lead to moral indifference or social inaction," said Parkins. "As people of faith we must remind others that our sisters and brothers need our help. We cannot permit ourselves a narrowing definition of community to protect ourselves from human crises that would otherwise shock us."
Parkins, who was appointed EMM director last October, delivered a blistering critique of California's Proposition 187 in his address at the annual network meeting. Proposition 187, which was overwhelmingly approved by voters last November but later set aside by a U.S. District Court, prohibits illegal immigrants from receiving any public assistance, including basic schooling for children, health care, food assistance and low-income housing.
In passing Proposition 187, California voters have unleashed a wave of nativism and parochialism under the guise of law, said Parkins. "Immigrants are being scapegoated more today than at any time in recent history. While Proposition 187 has not been implemented, the resounding victory it received at the polls sends a chilling message to immigrants that they are a burden and unwelcome," he said.
In response, the church must live up to its calling as a moral force, said Parkins, and promote the success stories of its work with immigrants and refugees. The rising negative tide should not go unchallenged, but be exposed as "shameless hyperbole." He argued that "human triumph is a powerful antidote to the current rush to immigrant bashing."
Parkins' call for more vocal advocacy of refugee interests was the major theme for the four-day training and networking event -- and was echoed by seven other speakers.
Charles Sykes of the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration praised non-profit organizations for the indispensable role they play in resettling refugees. He paid special tribute to EMM for not following the lead of other church agencies that accept refugees according to religious affiliation. He also praised non-profit agencies for providing cost-effective, culturally sensitive programs in easing refugees' transition to U.S. society, something that federal, state and local governments don't seem able to do. That experience, and their religious motivation, gives non-profits a credibility as refugee advocates that government agencies can't hope to match, said Sykes. "No one will be able to explain a lot of these issues, especially as we get into this debate, better than you," he said.
That debate, which in the last Congress generated measures ranging from denying relief to undocumented victims of the recent Los Angeles earthquakes to requiring citizenship as a precondition for receiving federal benefits -- none of which passed -- promises to be more divisive with the 104th Congress, according to Sykes. With their knowledge and experience, groups like EMM can provide a counterpoint to inflammatory rhetoric that ignores the distinction between legal and illegal immigration, he contended.
Keeping legal and illegal immigration separate -- and actively promoting the one while opposing the other -- will prove crucial in the coming battle to preserve the United States as a haven for legitimate refugees, said Sykes. "There is definitely going to be an effort to curb illegal immigration, both in Congress and the Administration." According to Sykes, President Clinton is strongly committed to bringing the number of undocumented immigrants down, which in 1993 reached 3.8 million undocumented immigrants.
"By closing this back door on illegal immigration, it ensures that we keep the front door open for legal migration," said Sykes.
Given the rhetoric sweeping the country and Congress, Clinton had little option except to toughen his Administration's stance. A number of Republicans, both in the House and Senate, Sykes pointed out later, are drafting or have introduced measures that toughen penalties on illegal immigrants while reducing the number of refugees admitted for resettlement and cutting back on overseas humanitarian aid.
The Clinton bill proposes stiffer penalties, said Sykes, "but nowhere near to the extent of what California is proposing." And while reducing the number of refugees admitted to the United States, it does so more gradually than other measures that have been introduced in Congress. Wyoming's Senator Alan Simpson, for example, has introduced a bill that proposes a 50,000 ceiling and trim overall immigration from 700,000 to 500,000 a year, said Sykes, though it allows Congress to boost the number with the assent of the Administration.
Last year the State Department admitted 120,000 refugees and this year has set the limit at 110,000, said Sykes. The 1996 level will most certainly be lower, but the actual number won't be set until after public hearings later this year.
The federal cutback is coming at a time of explosive growth in refugee populations. Conflicts in Bosnia, Somalia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, and the Nagorno-Karabakh have swelled the number of refugees to 23 million, and displaced another 20 million. With the government cutting its assistance, the State Department would like to see non-profit agencies fill the gap. That's an option that troubles Parkins.
"I don't think churches or the private sector can pick up that slack," said Parkins. "To some extent we have to resist that." Even if churches and other non-profits had funds to spare, it's not appropriate for them to pick up the tab, said Parkins, given that "the refugees are here as a matter of national policy." Their plight is the result of a government decision, whether of the United States or the country of origin, and the cost should fall to the government, he said, since it is orchestrating their resettlement.
Presently EMM receives $2 million annually from the State Department to resettle refugees, most of it in the form of per capita payments of $432 for each refugee assigned to EMM for resettlement. Support from the Episcopal Church consists of overhead for EMM offices in the Episcopal Church Center in New York, and a nominal sum for contingencies and grants and loans to individual refugees in extreme need (in 1994 it amounted to $6,000). The good news this year, said Parkins, is that EMM will be eligible for a $357,000 grant from the State Department which the church must match through donations of cash, goods and services or through other grants.
Though he doesn't want to see the Episcopal Church become the bankroller for refugee resettlement, Parkins does support increasing the resettlements handled by EMM since that is its mission. "Though advocacy is important, our ability to do advocacy presumes we can do the job of resettlement," he said. "So we have to tend to the store."
Parkins does acknowledge that refugee resettlement must compete with other pressing social issues for a congregation's time and energy. "We do have to recognize we're standing in queue with a lot of other worthwhile causes," he said. Yet, "there is a lot of potential out there. Once a parish does it, then it may want to do more of it. But it's a lot of hard work."
Aware of the limits on most diocesan budgets, Parkins encouraged the diocesan coordinators to work with other non-profits for grants, and tap sources that aren't explicitly serving refugees. This last approach will mean redefining refugees as residents, he said, and "as legitimate contenders for the services that other groups in need within the community seek" whether they are women, children, the elderly or the disabled.
Given the present tenor in Congress and in the country as a whole, said Parkins "If we do not speak for refugees and immigrants, who will?"
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