Deportee

“All they will call you will be Deportee” (Woody Guthrie, 1948)

Peter Rousmaniere has been writing about immigration issues for 20 year, posting regularly on his blog, http://www.workingimmigrants.com. While it is now clear – particularly with the appointments of Tom Homan as “Border Czar and Stephen Miller in the White House – that Donald Trump fully intends to follow through on his campaign rhetoric of mass deportations, Peter believes that won’t happen “because it will within weeks turn into a debacle.”

For one thing, the press and public interest groups will expose the human suffering, especially the separation of children from their parents. More significantly, the cost to the economy will quickly be felt, and business leaders and the farm lobby, who depend on both skilled and unskilled immigrant labor, will make their voices heard. The ironic result could be a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

But what, I asked Peter, of the pain involved in getting us from here to there? What of the damage to so many lives, not to mention to what's left of our own values?

He shared with me a letter he had sent to the minister of the Unitarian church of Woodstock Vermont, of which he is a member.

“Dear Leon

“I have a suggestion for Unitarians with respect to Donald Trump’s stated goal of mass deportations.

“Unitarian congregations can ally themselves with organizations that work directly with undocumented persons. An example is Migrant Justice in Burlington. I expect there are over a hundred groups in the U.S. who are very aware of their local unauthorized population.

“If someone is arrested by ICE, Unitarians can protest loudly and persistently. Quite possibly the arrested individual has a U.S. born child, hence an American citizen. Very many unauthorized persons have been in the U.S. for over a decade and do necessary work in their communities. These attachments can be highlighted. The media will respond.

“This kind of fast reaction strategy is roughly similar to how northern states organizations responded pre-Civil War when an escaped enslaved person was arrested for the purpose of returning the individual to slavery.”

Here is a simple strategy with almost universal application. Churches have often been in the forefront of immigration issues, ranging from welcoming Ukrainian refugees from the war in eastern Europe to sheltering the homeless and vulnerable across America. For many of them this is the message of the Sermon on the Mount, especially its first 12 verses, known as “the Beatitudes,”, which proclaim a religion of mercy, rather than judgment. And think of the countless other groups and organizations that have long been involved with working for years with migrants, immigrants, and other vulnerable peoples, who stand ready to help.

Now is a time for practical solutions. Almost all of us know someone who could be swept up in the promised dragnets. And here is a way we can help.

Unfortunately, this is not a new issue in America. It goes back to our roots . . . to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which Trump has said he will invoke to “put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them the hell OUT OF OUR COUNTRY” . . . to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 . . . to the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti in 1921 . . . to the plane crash at Los Gatos Canyon in 1948.

Here is Woody Guthrie’s tribute to those who died at Los Gatos . . . and millions of others . . . as sung by the Highwaymen.