Mass Deportation and Neighbor Love

Essays

Dear friends,

The man began to cry as he told me his story. I had known him for many years, but this was the first time I saw tears stream down his face. 

He grew up in a rural town where there was no sustainable work. Because of his family’s poverty, his dad left home and became a traveling construction worker.

It was a bittersweet survival. On the one hand, his dad made a little money and helped the family eat. But on the other, they were growing up without a father.

Eventually but unsurprisingly, his dad got badly injured on a job site. He tried to continue, but the construction company provided no medical insurance. It treated him and the other workers as throwaways.

His broken body could no longer do the heavy work, and he had no choice. He returned home to his impoverished family — injured, empty-handed, and humiliated. 

But his dad was devoted to his family and continued fighting for their survival. He taught himself how to make bread, built a clay oven, and started a bakery in their tiny home. At the time, the son was still a small boy, but he joined the family’s struggle to defeat poverty: he left school and started working with his dad. 

Under poverty, childhood doesn’t really exist. School and play are luxuries of an imagined world. And so the boy started spending his days walking their rural town and delivering bread to his dad’s few customers. 

They tried their best and felt a flicker of hope. But despite their collective effort, the family’s bread business was simply not enough to survive. Their poverty persisted and daily crushed their hope for a better life. 

* * *

And so he did what his dad had done before him: he left home and went looking for work to send money back to his family. 

At the time, he was barely a teenager and had never been away from home. It was a terrifying move. But he was out of options and mustered his courage. He said goodbye to his family, got on a bus, and traveled hundreds of miles to the big city. 

Amidst buzzing cars and big buildings, there were millions of people all around him. It felt like a different world compared to his rural village. And for a moment, it also felt full of possibility. He dreamed of working hard and sending money home to his family so they could buy food and his dad’s medicine. 

He wandered the city’s streets alone and knocked on every door he could. But no one would hire him. For all of his gritty determination, he was still a small boy without an education or skills beyond his dad’s homegrown bakery.

After many months of fruitlessly searching for work, he himself could no longer survive in the city. And so he did once more what his dad had done before him: he returned home — broken-hearted, empty-handed, and humiliated. 

Of course, home was unchanged. It seemed like poverty had permanently imprisoned his family and exhausted their options. Leaving home to find work had failed. In fact, it only resulted in injury and humiliated hopes. But starting a small family business out of their home also wasn’t working. Despite baking bread for their neighbors, they themselves could barely afford to eat. 

Had all their efforts come to this? Were they truly hopeless and damned to poverty’s prison? 

* * *

This is when he made a desperate choice. It would eventually change his and his family’s life, though his story remains suspenseful still today. 

This time, he chose to travel even further from home – to the border hundreds of miles to the north. They had heard that there were men there who had made their own business off the poverty of others. For a fee, these “coyotes” promised to smuggle you across the border and into America. 

The family pooled their meager resources, and he set off on yet another terrifying journey. Still, his mission was the same as before: to help his family eat and escape poverty. 

He got on another bus and made it to the border. There he paid the “coyotes” their fee, and they packed him into a car. In the middle of the night, they crossed the border.

His heart raced with that old, familiar tension of fear and hope. Would this journey be his final humiliation? Or would it finally unlock a new beginning? 

He was dropped in another small town and then traveled to another big city. But in America, the outcome was different. He found work. 

* * * 

It was anything but glamorous. But he was grateful.

He started washing dishes in the kitchen of a restaurant. With time, he was able to send a small amount of money back home to his family to buy groceries.

After more time passed, he learned how to cook the restaurant’s food, and it paid him a little more money. He could now pay for his dad’s medicine and help his younger siblings go to school. 

Of course, his life was still profoundly precarious. He worked long hours in the kitchen and received no benefits. He could be arrested and deported at any moment. Back home, his family’s life was still extremely poor compared to the families he cooked for at the restaurant. 

But he worked hard and got a second job at another restaurant. The “American dream” he had heard about as a poor kid in Mexico was starting to become a reality. 

He then began helping his family back in Mexico build a small home with running water and electricity. This humble symbol of freedom from poverty was also fraught with fear: even a slight improvement to their life in the rural village could become a target of the local gangs.

Alas, that’s exactly what happened. One night, men showed up at their unfinished home and gutted its pipes and cables. They were profitable spoils to sell on the black market. 

Still, he refused to lose heart or give up. He kept working his two full-time jobs and continued helping his family survive back home. Simultaneously, that immigrant expression “back home” became more complicated. With each year, America was becoming his home.

* * *

Eventually, he met an American woman waitressing at the restaurant. They chatted in the kitchen and ended up falling in love.

With time, he got to know her family. After trust was built, he asked her father for permission to marry her, and he said yes. A local pastor performed their joyous, backyard wedding, and they started a new life together.

They continued working at the restaurant and saved what they could. They then took a step of faith: they bought a small home of their own and started having children. 

And his children had a childhood.

They had plenty of food to eat in a home with electricity and running water – and without fear of thieves stripping them away.

They went to school.

They played sports, took dance classes, and memorized Bible verses at church.

Perhaps most importantly, his children had a father. Yes, like his dad, he worked long hours. But unlike his dad, he came home at night and helped his children with their homework. On his day off, he went to their games and volunteered in the community. 

This is when he began to cry. And I cried with him. 

* * *

After a nonexistent childhood of impoverished humiliation and hopelessness, this man was now giving his children the life he never had. They were healthy and happy – and safe. They didn’t need to board a bus, travel far from home, and wander a terrifying city alone in search of work. They could be kids. They could discover their talents and dreams. They could flourish – free of poverty, against the odds.

To be clear, they didn’t have a lot compared to some of the other families who ate at the restaurant and lived in their neighborhood. Unlike many of the other kids, their dad worked and paid taxes without any benefits or social security. They also lived under the ominous shadow of fearing their dad’s deportation.

But they loved one another. And they were together. And his family thrived in ways that he thought were impossible just a few years before, even in his most desperate dreams. 

* * * 

Dear America,

Would you humiliate their hope? 

Would you separate their family? 

Would you turn this man’s inspiring dream into a despairing nightmare? 

About the Statue of Liberty in New York | Detailed Guide

The inscription on the Statue of Liberty declares, 

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Would you slam that “golden door” in the face of this courageous father – all in the name of your “golden age”?

* * * 

This man told me his heartbreaking yet hope-inspiring story years ago. At the time, he was applying for an official pardon from the American government for crossing the border illegally. He wanted to make his wrong right and to become a full-fledged, legal participant in the American dream. Despite having taken English classes at a community college, he needed some help putting his story on paper. And so he told it me. 

Today he continues chasing his dream. He works his job, fathers his family, and anxiously waits for his paperwork to be processed.

As he waits, he lives every day in the grueling tension of the fear and hope that has haunted his life. Will the U.S. government accept his formal apology and allow him to remain with his American wife and children? Or will it deport him back to Mexico and separate him from his family yet again, humiliated and hopeless once more?  

* * * 

On Sunday, Immigration and Custom Services (ICE), together with the FBI, began raiding American cities and arresting people like this man.

Emil Bove, Acting Deputy Attorney General, declared in Chicago that his forces were “deploying in lockstep…to secure the border, stop this invasion, and make America safe again.” He dubbed this a “critical mission to take back our communities” and promised “to protect the homeland.” He concluded, “Most importantly, we will not rest until the work is done.”

The border czar Tom Homan also commented on this restless work and said, “You’re going to see the numbers steadily increase, the number of arrests nationwide as we open up the aperture.”

I cannot describe the anguish, rage, and grief that I felt when I read this news and remembered my neighbor’s story told through his tears. I felt like I was living in a country that I could hardly recognize as my own. 

Of course, ICE has declared that their targets for deportation are “dangerous criminal aliens.” While I reject this dehumanizing language, I do not dispute the fact that such violent offenders have voided the privilege of remaining in America. They had their chance and made their choice. 

But here in Chicagoland where I write, CBS News reported,

“[T]here are concerns that the mission will not be limited to those with active warrants for long. In communities with large immigrant populations, people said they do not known where ICE will pop up or for whom ICE is looking.” 

The governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, confirmed this. While he said that he supports ICE’s “operation,” he admitted, “What they’re also doing though — and it’s quite disturbing — is they’re going after people who are law-abiding, who are holding down jobs, who have families here, who may have been here for a decade or two decades — and they’re often our neighbors and our friends.” They’re people like the man who told me his inspiring story.

Governor Pritzker then asked, “why are we going after them? These are not people who are causing problems in this country, and we need to secure a path to citizenship for them.” But Tom Homan, the border czar, stated bluntly, “If you’re in the country illegally, you’re on the table.”

“On the table.” It’s a callous metaphor to describe the fate of other humans –  like a piece of paper to be stamped in red or an animal to be slaughtered.

* * * 

The Statue Of Justice Themis Or Justitia The Blindfolded Goddess Of Justice Against A Flag Of The United States Of America As A Legal Concept Stock Photo - Download Image Now - iStock

Across court houses in the United States, another “lady” embodies America’s founding values. Lady Justice stands tall and typically with her eyes blindfolded. Her blindfold is a profound symbol of justice.

It represents the United States’ commitment to impartially fulfill Lady Liberty’s promise to all the “poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” For many dreamers like the man whose story I’ve told above, Lady Liberty and Lady Justice are the inseparable symbols of the American dream. Together they represent the hope for a new life liberated from the prison of poverty and violence where everyone is treated with dignity and compassion. 

But today, that blindfold is becoming an ominous symbol of American indifference to the suffering of others searching for hope in our shared dream.

As our politicians foment fear and seek to cement their power, they tell us that these dreamers are “dangerous criminal aliens.” But the truth is the opposite.

According to the U.S. government’s own National Institute of Justice, “undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes.” In other words, the vast majority of illegal immigrants in the U.S. are like the man who wept as he told me his story of heartbreaking poverty in Mexico and resurrected hope here in America. They’re people who want to work, raise families, and contribute to their community. 

* * *

In his inaugural address on January 20th, the president declared, “We can’t forget God!” Later in another speech, he promised, “We’re bringing religion back to our country!”

But as he orders “the LARGEST DEPORTATION in American history,” we should ask ourselves: which “God” are we remembering, and which “religion” are we “bringing back”?

In his letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul made the heart of God and the Christian religion crystal clear. He wrote, “the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” For Paul, we can keep every law in the Bible and our own legal codes, but if we fail to love our neighbors as ourselves, we’ve broken the spirit of all of them in the eyes of God.

Most simply, “this one command” of neighbor love is a call to remove our blindfolds and practice empathy with others. That is, it’s a God-given imperative to see ourselves in others, to enter into their suffering, and to desire for them what we desire for ourselves. 

In his final teaching, Jesus highlighted six kinds of neighbors who are especially close to his heart: the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, the foreigner, and the prisoner. Jesus said that however we treat these neighbors, this is how we’ve treated God (Matthew 25:40, 45).

In many ways, my Mexican neighbor’s story embodies all six of these vulnerabilities: his families hunger, thirst, and inadequate clothing; his dad’s illness; and his own foreign status in the US and fear of being imprisoned.

As I think of his story, I can’t avoid asking myself these questions: 

If I grew up in rural poverty and watched my injured father fail to provide for my hungry family, would I have dropped out of school and devoted my days to delivering bread? 

When that failed, would I have had the courage to leave home and travel to Mexico City in search of work to help my family survive? 

When that failed, would I have had any other choice but to risk my life and cross the American border in search of work to send money home? 

Even if I made it, would I have had the rugged work ethic to wash dishes in a kitchen all day, get a second job, and then refuse to give up when my desperate efforts were robbed back home?     

And if I survived all of that, would I have the resilience to endure the daily stress of working overtime at minimum wage, fathering my children, and living with the constant fear of being separated from them at any moment? 

These are the simple questions that loving my Mexican neighbor as myself requires me to ask myself. 

Frankly, I doubt that I would have his incredible strength. But if I were in his shoes, I pray that I would have the courage to try. 

More broadly, would any of us, if we grew up amidst the violent humiliation and hopelessness of his poverty, have had any other option besides despair but to risk it all like he did and try to find work across the border so our family could eat? Imagine if your dad were sick, if your siblings were hungry, and if crossing the border were your only option to help them. What would you do?  

I ask one more question: if we reject “forgetting God” and want to “bring religion back to our country,” are we willing to actually obey God’s “one command” and love our neighbors as ourselves? Or has our liberty become so exclusive, our justice so blind, and our religion so anti-biblical that we would support the crushing our neighbors’ hope – or simply remain passive in the face of it?

Is that the “homeland” we want? Is that the “safety” we desire? Is that the moral quality of our “golden age”? 

 * * *

PC: Christian Science Monitor

The mayor of Chicago said in response to ICE’s raids on Sunday, “It is imperative that all Chicagoans know their constitutional rights and share the Know Your Rights guidance with their neighbors and community.” For followers of Jesus, this is the bare minimum of what his “one command” of neighbor love requires of us. 

As I hold my Mexican neighbor’s weeping face in my memory, I appeal to each of us to make a series of premeditated choices today: 

  • Choose not to be complicit in the arrest and deportation of your undocumented neighbors.
  • Choose to do everything in your power to advocate for them and to protect them from arrest.
  • And as Moses said to Israel, “Choose this day which God you will serve” – either the golden calf of American nationalism or the crucified Jesus who commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves. 

None of us can avoid making this choice. If we remain silent and passive as our neighbors are deported, we have made our choice. 

I urge all of us:

  • Learn about your immigrant neighbors’ rights.
  • Reach out to them and ask how they’re feeling and what they need in this frightening time.
  • Call your state and federal representatives and demand that your immigrant neighbors be protected and given a path to citizenship.

Choose this day which God you will serve. Love your neighbor as yourself.

According to Jesus, if we deport our “foreign” neighbors, we’re also deporting God along with them (Matthew 25:31-46).

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