On Saturday night, my husband and I sat in the small kitchen of an apartment in a nearby city. This apartment is now 'home' to seven refugees - all young men. The apartment is heated solely by electricity, an expensive option in our cold northeast winters. All of the appliances are also electric. The electricity was turned off four days before, so we sat, shivering, around a table. Today, the electricicity is still off and we are doing whatever we can to get it turned on. "Whatever we can" has turned out to be far more complicated than it should be.
This is a short story in a much bigger tale of displacement and resettlement. It is an easy story compared to much of what we have heard and seen, but it is still a difficult one.
Refugees have become pawns and scapegoats in a political game, instead of human beings, desperate for safety and refuge. This should not be a partisan issue, this should be a human issue.
Communicating Across Boundaries is not, and never will be, a political blog. It is a blog about communicating across our comfortable borders and boundaries and being willing to see the other side, to hear another's point of view.
But I think when it comes to the recent refugee order, we are being played by master players. There is room for common ground on most issues, only it is hard to find that common ground when our emotions run high and we see the issue as black and white. Caution and compassion are not incompatible; instead it is reasonable to assume that they work well together.
In the interest of finding common ground on an issue I care deeply about, I have posed a few areas where I hope we can agree.
- We can agree that there is a crisis. The number of refugees has become a humanitarian crisis. This is why the United States increased their capacity last year - because UNHCR and other humanitarian aid organizations begged for countries to help. "An unprecedented 65.3 million people around the world have been forced from home. Among them are nearly 21.3 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18."
- We can agree that governments are tasked with protecting their citizens. Every country has the right to make laws and rules. Every country has a right to vetting policies that take into consideration safety and security.
- We can agree that immigration policies have been in crisis for a long time. The immigration policies in the United States have been failing the country for many years. This is not new and it is a travesty that this has not been resolved by law makers. President Obama was known by immigration groups as the "Deporter in Chief." "Between 2009 and 2015 his administration has removed more than 2.5 million people through immigration orders, which doesn't include the number of people who "self-deported" or were turned away and/or returned to their home country at the border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)." [Source: ABC News] Real people suffer under poor policies.
- We can agree that good policy must be a compromise. Good policy rarely comes out of reactionary hyperbole. Good policy comes when people sit down and look at facts: risk versus value. Good policy comes when both sides of an issue are heard and both sides are willing to compromise.
- Finally, we can agree that the state is not the master of the church. If you are part of a faith community the recent orders do not prohibit you and your faith community from reaching out to those who may be affected. They do not prohibit you from reaching out, in love, to refugees in your midst. It is a lot easier to wear a sign and yell "Let them in!" than it is to make a hot meal and take it to strangers. We must be willing to do more than react emotionally. We must be willing to put our loudly voiced newsfeeds into real action.
I have so much more to say - but I fear that I will join the echo chamber if I keep on talking. Thank you for listening.
I end with this quote: "The ability to love refugees well doesn't require a certain party affiliation. It doesn't require you to vote a certain way. But it does require us to show up, to step across "enemy" lines, and to choose love over fear."
I have included this quote from an excellent article from Preemptive Love: President Trump's Refugee Order: 5 Things to Know.
Vetting and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Sometimes we get locked into strident, polarizing positions, as if our only choice is between opening our border completely in the name of love, or locking everyone out in the name of security. Let us be clear: this is a false choice. You can care about refugees and care about securing our borders. This is not a "liberal vs. conservative" issue. It's not a "Republican vs. Democrat" issue. It's not all black-and-white. There are shades of gray. There are entirely legitimate reasons to insist on a careful, thorough screening process for those coming into the United States. Insisting on adequate security does not make you a "cold-hearted conservative." Nor does insisting on compassion for refugees make someone a "bleeding-heart liberal." More importantly, we need to see beyond the dualistic, mutually exclusive categories of "us vs. them." Our security versus their well-being. What if, in reality, our well-being is tied up in theirs? What if our security is connected to theirs? If that is the case, then we must find ways to pursue our mutual well being. And sometimes, that requires taking risks. See the entire article here.
