Immigration is less a legal issue than it is a moral one. A mission pastor shares that the tears of immigrant children have transformed his heart, as he hopes they transform yours. By Father Steven Pawelk
April 2018. As I am driving over the mountains between my two missions, I begin receiving phone calls.
“They took my husband!” a parishioner tells me. “They took my mom!” says another one, crying. “I am being held by Immigration!” a woman tells me.
As I arrive at St. John Paul II Catholic Church in Rutledge, Tennessee, five children ages 5 to 15, packed in a car, anxiously wait for me to open the parish doors. All of their parents work at a meatpacking plant that was raided. By noon, there are 50 women and children in my church. By around 5 p.m., there are over 100 people worrying about their parents, spouses, and siblings.
My work with immigrants began unexpectedly in 1989, when I was assigned to a three-parish mission based in Claxton, Georgia. There, immigrants worked at Vidalia onion fields and numerous poultry plants. These families came to church, demonstrated strong faith and strong family ties.
I asked an immigrant dad why he did not come with papers. (He came alone; his kids and wife were still in Mexico.) “I would, if I could,” he said. In my conversation with him, I first discovered that a passport from Mexico and many other countries is insufficient to enter the United States. He went on to explain: “If I work here for six months and am sent back to Mexico, I will feed my five children meat for a year, not just rice and beans. If I am able to work for a year or more, I can save money to send them to school.” (In Mexico, education is free only up to eighth grade.) “God calls me to provide for my family. What risks, Father, would you take to feed your family?”
I have never forgotten this man’s story. At that same parish, in 1991, I experienced my first workplace raid at a poultry plant. Again, parents and school officials were calling me. Parents were taken from the poultry plant but not permitted to get their children, mostly because the children were US citizens. Teachers gathered care packages for the children to take home, and I waited for them at the trailer park to help each terrorized child find a family to take care of them. Of course, before the month was out, every parent was back in Georgia working somewhere else. What parent would not come back at any expense to take care of their children? If they had not, how would they have been judged?
In Mississippi, with the help of Father Francois Pellisier, the Spanish Mass was started at one of my two parishes. Yet, my own Spanish was very limited. I hired Sigifredo and his family to assist me since he was the only one who applied for the position. They lived in Colombia and had relatives in Mississippi.
Sigifredo and his youngest 8-year-old daughter arrived with an R1 work visa (religious worker), but his spouse and 11-year-old daughter had an R2 visa, which didn’t allow them to work. Afterward, in renewing their visas, they were sent a letter that they needed to leave in 30 days. We discovered that the immigration office made an error. Even with a legal aide, mistakes are made because immigration rules vary depending on the applicant’s country of origin.
Moral and legal issues
The 2018 raid in Bean Station, near Rutledge, Tennessee, was not the only event affecting children. The only Latino basketball player at one of the small schools endured racial insults from people in the stands and opposing teams, but the coach said nothing.
After the raid, I invited the newspaper to interview some of the families. The reporter was determined to do a hard story about “illegals.” Instead, she left crying after talking to the children and became a supporter of immigration reform.
One of the most tragic stories was when a mother and son from Honduras showed up at church. The 7-year-old son was bathing and feeding his mom since her arms were cut off above her elbows and her face scarred because her husband would not cooperate with the drug lords in Honduras. She was made an example. She and her son were given tourist visas. Yet, her 3-year-old daughter was not given a visa to travel thus leaving her in Honduras with the father. The tortured woman qualified for refugee status, but then she would never see her daughter again. She went back home.
My heart bleeds for these children and their suffering. They have reminded me that immigration is less a legal issue than it is a moral issue. Remember, not every law is moral (abortion and capital punishment are legal, but immoral). And not every illegal action is immoral (many Catholics, including the pope, broke the law to protect Jewish people from the Nazis during WWII).
As a pastor, I am called to serve all God’s children regardless of legal status, race, class, or any other divisive factor. It is my task to strengthen and feed the body of Christ so all may have salvation. Before we can change laws, we must first change hearts.
May the tears and fears of these children transform your hearts as they have mine.
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