I MAKE MY STAND . . . WITH IMMIGRANTS

Given the events of the past day, with the administration of #45 announcing that they will rescind the Obama era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that offers provisional protection for those who came to this country as children and are not documented,  my first in this series is particularly poignant. 

I MAKE MY STAND: A PERSONAL MANIFESTO AND CALL TO ACTION

I BEGIN BY MAKING MY STAND WITH IMMIGRANTS.  I make no distinction between so-called documented and undocumented immigrants. I include refugees here as well, persons under particular distress, fleeing situations of danger and violence.  These words, for me, refer simply to other human beings. They happen to be arrivals from one place on our planet home to another, bringing with them uniquenesses of language, food, culture, and ways of being.  Rather than distancing myself from them in the face of these differences, I seek to welcome, to delight in and learn from them, increasing my own understanding of the breadth and variety and creativity of the human spirit.  In this welcoming I recognize that I too have been an immigrant, having myself lived in various places and moved during my lifetime. My stand with immigrants is rooted in my faith -- in the call in Jewish and Christian scriptures – to welcome, to treat as equal, to treat kindly and with justice, the foreigner and the stranger.  This links to the core teaching of most belief systems – “to love your Maker with your entire being, and love your neighbor as yourself.”  And today, we live in a world in which we are all neighbors to each other. In the current moment I want to be explicit that I stand with DACA young people in this country - #HereToStay -;  and I stand with refugees fleeing the horrors of war, flooding, and famine in the Middle East and in Africa; with those fleeing  economic despair and violence in Central America, Mexico, and other parts of the world.   In the immigrant, I am blessed with a new brother, a new sister, new families and communities.  In the world I envision, the invisible boundaries that separate so-called nation-states no longer exist.  There are no longer situations which create the need for people to be refugees. All people are able to move freely, everyone is welcomed everywhere, and the human community is enriched as we share life on our planet home, our Pacha Mama – Mother Earth.

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the rights of DACA recipients and all immigrants
(Note: While I personally support their work, this blog is not affiliated with
United We Dream.  The views expressed here are solely my own, and
should not be construed as representing United We Dream.)