Christmas lights illustration (Photo by Getty Images).
During this season of love, please ask introspectively whether you would feel thankful allegiance to a new country that deported you back into poverty and violence after you had risked all to escape that in your old home? After you had traversed the Darian Gap, waded, or floated treacherous waters, or walked for hungry miles in unknown jungle and barren wasteland?
In their eyes or yours, would mass deportation really again make America Great? Or were we greatest when the French gift welcomed many while lifting Liberty’s light above the golden door?
Many family histories contain celebrations like that of Mayflower Compact Signatory Edward Doty, my ancestor who, on the first Thanksgiving, expressed gratitude that America offered a place to escape religious intolerance, famine or war. Edward’s boat was blown off-course from where the King had granted a charter to settle in Virginia. Lacking that technicality, the Pilgrims were illegal immigrants in Massachusetts. Other than as the self-proclaimed emissary from God, what gave the King power to approve Pilgrim occupation of native land? And nothing but self-granted authority gave Mayflower Compact signatories authority to bootstrap themselves into a place they mistakenly called “Virginia;” a place that would later realize in its own Declaration of Independence the “self-evident truth” that “all men are created equal.” So, remembering Christmas sojourners and our historical journey as strangers, let’s recall Edward’s group of illegal migrants were treated quite well by Indigenous people.
Intuitively natives knew what created love, even though they did not have scriptures to base their response to sojourners on. Jesus embraced wisdom similar to Leviticus 19:33-34 which taught: “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt…,” a land where Jesus was immediately taken by Joseph to avoid harm by Herod.
The wise men undoubtedly were aware of Leviticus’ admonition. So, in addition to contemplating what Jesus or natives would do, let’s also ponder, “What would the Magi and Joseph do?”
Their story is one of sojourners traveling for many reasons; not only as those to be enrolled because Caesar decreed it (Luke 2:1-6); but as others fleeing a multitude of desperate conditions.
Would justice permit one group to find room in a stable because there was no room in the inn (Luke 2:7), and the other to face detention for weeks on cold concrete behind wire barricades before being deported back to conditions where they came from? Who deserves to be worshiped by shepherds or to be “gifted” with the justice of ”free” bus rides to cities struggling to find available rooms in many inns where there is, as Willie Nelson sings, “still a lot of love livin’ in the promised land?”
Will those sanctuaries be intimidated by the incoming president’s promises to deny them their share of federal tax dollars if they refuse to enforce laws kept in place by his decree killing a bipartisan compromise to modify the law because that change would hinder his reelection by preventing his getting credit for “fixing” the immigration problem?
You’ll recall Syria’s King Herod tried to deceive the wise men into telling him where Jesus was, by claiming he, Herod, wanted to worship the new born king. Of course, wise men did not buy the ruse. So, they departed Bethlehem by another route, sojourning to avoid seeing Herod again.
Traveling a different route where “God is our refuge” (Psalm 46:1) bears some similarities to the path implied in contemporary acts by churches, mayors of Denver and Chicago, their governors, and others promising to be sanctuaries—creating grateful allegiance to our country rather than hatred for it.
The returning president-elect advocates changing our Constitution’s 14th Amendment to deport natural born citizens as part of whole families whose undocumented parents have been otherwise law abiding, productive sojourners here for decades. That Amendment entitles “persons,” who do not have to be citizens, to equal protection of the law, due process, life, liberty and property. So, the oath to defend our Constitution is not fulfilled by deporting “dreamer” kids to countries where they do not know the language; many of whom learned only English here as their native tongue. Does such deportation foster feelings of grateful allegiance or merely destroy the dream?
A dream warned Joseph: Escape to Egypt to avoid Herod’s wrath. Herod later proved he would harm Jesus once knowing his location since Herod ordered all Bethlehem’s male babies to be killed. Fearing similar retribution, Joseph would not even return to Israel after Herod died because Herod’s son took over. Instead, Joseph went to Nazareth. (Matthew 2:13-23)
Would the Magi journey to sanctuary cities willing to stand against federal troops that future “Border Czar” Tom Homan, has threatened to deploy in support of his planned mass deportations? Homan is credited with bringing about the first Trump administration’ s policy illegally separating children from their parents at the border—a fate akin to, but only slightly less harsh than, Herod’s toddler destruction?
Mass deportation also conjures ghostlike past memories of a complaint enumerated in our Declaration of Independence because England’s King “endeavored to prevent the Population of these States … obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither….”
Allegedly protecting us from migrant crime is a reason given for deporting those whose only crime is being non-documented. Statistics show that other than non-documentation, criminal-acts as a percentage of migrant populations are less prevalent than crime from U.S. citizens. My experience supports those statistical facts. Recently, I had nothing to fear from Hispanics, who are enduring the most deportation, when my foot slipped off the brake in a line at the McDonalds drive inn. I bumped a carload of Latino male high school students in front of me. The driver and his companions were justifiably angry at being jarred until I apologized and offered to pay for any damage. Luckily, the cars had no dents. And seeing how bent over and old I was, they let their better natures take over. I appreciated that. It reinforced my gratitude for them, making me less afraid of their status as citizens or migrants than I am of U.S. adults who twice demolished our tri-lingual lawn signs reading, “Regardless of where you are from, we’re glad you are our neighbor.”
We now face a newer cause of immigration. In Latin America I saw hot weather and torrential flooding drive locals off their land. “Climate migrants” they are called.
Acclaimed scientist Katherine Heyhoe estimates in her book “Saving Us” “that climate change could displace as many as a billion people by mid-century.” Heyhoe’s Dec. 20 post documents millions already exiled.
It’s why another question from Christmas ghosts haunts me—how will mass deportation “fix” the “illegal” climate migrant dilemma? Sending people back to lands overwhelmed by the catastrophic storms and famine that made those folks climate migrants in the first place is not even a temporary solution. And it creates hatred despite those striving to spread peace and good will in the promised land.
So, our minister friends encourage climate justice to prevail as a moral obligation requiring Magi-gift-like largess extending goodwill toward climate immigrants, since our prolific use of fossil fuel has contributed disproportionately to creating reasons for migration in the first place. Climate migrants exceed in number, the artificially low limit our laws allow to migrate here. Yes, the Magi took a different road; for once they had followed a star to find love, they could not do otherwise.
Russ is grateful for time he spent sharing with you and forming the views expressed herein as Past President of the Montana Methodist Youth Fellowship, native from Great Falls, earning a Masters’ in Political Science from the University of Montana, former Member of the Montana House of Representatives, recipient of the Am. Jur. Award for the top grade in Constitutional Law at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, and author and retired attorney practicing in Montana, Minnesota, and Colorado.