A perspective on immigration reform from El Salvador

I thought I would share with you all the letter I sent to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on immigration reform. The legislation the committee is working on is in my opinion preposterous and in-humane, to put it mildly. Being in El Salvador has really given us a chance to look at immigration issues literally from the "other side"--and the perspective is very different. Bishop Barahona says that no human being is "illegal," that all of us are citizens of the Earth, and should have the ability to move about it freely. Recalling Matthew 8:20 ("Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no where to lay his head"), he points out that birds, foxes, and little animals cross international borders freely, but human beings are not free to do so. The day before my friend Becky Noonan Heale got on the plane from El Salvador to the U.S. after my ordination, she was struck by the fact that she was doing something most of the people around us in El Salvador are not allowed to do.

Here are some other resources on immigration reform:
+A recent Episcopal News Service Article http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_72859_ENG_HTM.htm
+The website of No More Deaths in the Desert
http://www.nomoredeaths.org/

Here is my letter:

Dear Senator,
I am a 2005-2006 Fulbright grant recipient working on the subject of social justice and religion with the Anglican Church of El Salvador. I am also an Episcopal (Anglican) priest. During my six months working and studying in El Salvador so far, I have gained a unique perspective on Latin American migration to the U.S. There are the statistics: approximately 700 people a day leave this small country, which is the size of Massachucetts, to attempt to immigrate to the United States without documentation. They leave in hope of finding a job where they might make $6 an hour as opposed to $6 a day (if they were lucky enough to find work in El Salvador, which many are not). There is no one here who is untouched by immigration-- families spend years apart, without the freedom to travel and see one another. Then there are the personal connections: I experienced the angst that 700 families experience daily when a young woman from the church where I work set out with her two-year-old daughter to re-join her husband, who is working without documentation in the U.S. I was aware of the conditions of fear and deprivation that undocumented immigrants live under in the U.S. from my work with the immigrant community there. Living in El Salvador I have learned about the incredible dangers that migrants, especially Central Americans, face just to arrive in the U.S.: migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras must travel for days through Mexico without documentation-- they run the risk of capture and gross human rights abuses at the hands of Mexican police-- before they must face the well-known perils of the deserts, rivers, and trains at the U.S. borders, where people die daily, for the "crime" of desiring a better life.

I understand that the immigration bill under consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee would in fact make it a felony to enter or remain in the U.S. without documentation-- increasing the atmosphere of fear that people live under who have already risked their lives and split up their families to come to the U.S.-- not to steal, not to commit terrorist acts, but simply to work, at jobs most people born in the U.S. would never do, and to earn a wage. I also understand that this legislation would criminalize humanitarian assistance to undocumented immigrants. In that case, Senator, I have to tell you that my faith will force me and many others in the churches to become criminals. In Matthew 25 Jesus commands his followers to give food to the hungry, clothing to the naked, to tend to the sick and to visit prisoners. We will continue to do these things, caring more for those in need and the state of our souls than for the Federal Government's legislation. In that case we would take our places in the prisons, like Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss, volunteers with No More Deaths, who are facing 15-year prison sentences for medically evacuating immigrants in critical condition in the Arizona desert.

U.S. immigration law needs to be reformed. You have the opportunity to make things better for people who have come to the United States seeking a better life, like your ancestors. Please do not make them worse.

Sincerely,
The Rev. Amy Denney Zuniga
2005-2006 Fulbright Recipient
Iglesia Anglicana Episcopal de El Salvador