Ethical Houston

 On January 11 along with about four hundred clergy and laity from major denominations and Jewish congregations, I attended the Interfaith Immigration Convocation at St. Paul’s UMC in Houston.  The purpose of the meeting was to develop a constituency among denominations to make public the Principles of Humane Immigration Reform that we collectively support.  The convocation further stated that “we hope to provide a moral framework for our city that will allow people of faith to reflect on these important issues as Congress begins to discuss them in the New Year”.  

 The presentations and positions of the leaders of these faith communities was generally well received by the group in attendance.  However, there was an underlying anxiety expressed by many pastors, particularly from primarily Anglo congregations that these positions were not compatible with those positions expressed and held by laity in the pews.  Immigration is probably the biggest issue that divides along the lines of clergy and laity.  But our faith traditions call us to love neighbor particularly the alien, the widow and the orphan.  Over and over in the bible we see this theme emerge as what we are called to live into and witness too. 

 This idea of loving God and loving Neighbor including the immigrant seems to be lost on a large and vocal lay contingency.  Most often, as a last resort when confronted by biblical imperatives,  the objection to immigrants is leveled at the illegality of these persons entry into the United States.  And most often the solution offered is that we should send them back to where they came from.  But the problem is much more complex than people swimming across the Rio Grande or walking into the US through the Arizona desert.  It is also about reunifying families.  The waiting list for getting family members brought to this country where they have a parent or spouse takes anywhere from three to eight years.  It’s about children who were not born in the US but have gone to school here, have graduated from high school or college and cannot legally get a job that they may be qualified for.  And it is about our country’s  need for unskilled labor but the US only having 5000 visas annually allotted for unskilled laborers.

 One purpose of this convocation was to give people the courage and the resolve to get the facts about immigration and then to tell their neighbors and representatives in Washington that we want Comprehensive Immigration Reform.  The inaccurate information about immigration is rampant.  It’s important to get the facts.  There are many in the business community that would also like to get comprehensive immigration reform.  Many of them are unknowingly breaking the law and must now e-verify all new hires.  We heard one story at the meeting about a man who had worked for a construction company for fifteen years .  He had been paying taxes, raised a family and had been a model citizen.  Someone in Arizona with the same SS number filed for unemployment which flagged the Houston worker.  As a result, the employer had to fire the employee.  From a purely economic standpoint, look at The Cato Institute, a conservative liberation think tank at

http://www.cato.org/immigration  They clearly believe that it is in the best interest to have immigration and in fact not having immigration reform costs the US billions of dollars a year.  

 So, what of the issue of legality?  Jesus said, “I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.”  To me this means that there are two sets of laws that govern our lives.  Man’s laws and God’s laws.  Jesus in this statement is saying that man’s laws are not always just and that we need to seek to discern and fulfill God’s laws.  History is replete with examples of man’s laws being contrary to what we now accept as being just and that resonate with God’s will.  In our own country we can start with slavery, child labor, women’s rights and most recently Jim Crowe laws that prohibited blacks from even getting a drink of water from a “Whites only” water fountain.  Over and over in these cases those who want to maintain the status quo have argued that “it’s the law” and to ask for change of an unjust law is not acceptable. 

 We recognize that immigration is a difficult and complex issue and that there are no easy answers.  But the debate will continue and we in the Church, whether clergy or laity will need to have the courage to first of all, talk about immigration in our congregations and secondly to use our leadership and conviction to discuss the issue in a respectful way and third to put a face on the issue by having conversation with persons different form us.  If we do not begin to talk about the issue in a rational and biblically based manner we will continue to allow those who shout the loudest to dominate the conversations and to hold forth with nothing being accomplished.  We all can agree that our current immigration system is broken.  To me the question is, what will be the landscape around this issue of immigration be in ten years?  Immigration reform is an ethical and moral issue that goes to the heart of our faith tradition.   Pastors will have to have the courage to speak from their pulpits on welcoming the stranger, but more importantly we lay persons who believe that our current law on immigration is not just, must ally ourselves with our pastors to say, “we need and want comprehensive immigration reform and we want the debate to be civil and rational and the results should mirror our faith traditions of welcoming the stranger and Loving God and Loving Neighbor.