People Are Not Disposable

A child who is waiting for a parent to come home experiences time differently from the person who is processing that parent’s detention. For one, the afternoon may be a series of forms, decisions, and procedures. For the other, it is a front door that stays closed, the dinner that is either not prepared, or growing cold, and then, there is the question which no adult seems able to answer. Any conversation about immigration that cannot make room for that child has already become too comfortable with its distance from human suffering.

As a pastor, I am concerned about what that distance is doing to us. I hear people invoke the law as though mentioning it settles every moral question. I hear entire communities being discussed with a suspicion that does not give a crud about evidence beyond an accent, a surname, or the color of someone’s skin. And I wonder how we have learned to speak so confidently about people whose stories we have never bothered to hear.

The sacred texts across religions place an obligation upon us even before we ever get to a debate about borders. Genesis 1:27 locates human worth in the image of God. That sacred identity precedes citizenship and survives every classification a government might assign. An expired visa cannot cancel a person’s worth. Neither can an ‘unauthorized’ border crossing erase it. Governments can regulate residency, but they cannot regulate sacred worth.

Yet our language often suggests otherwise. Each time “illegal” becomes a noun, a person can easily disappear inside the void of an accusation, or the neighbor who fixes your roof, or sings beside you in worship, or watches your children can easily become a category on which just about any indignity is imposed. When this happens, dehumanization can easily make its way into ordinary conversations until people scarcely notice what they have agreed to overlook. I am truly appalled at how easily this happens.

Leviticus 19:33–34 confronts this vicious habit by commanding Israel to love the foreigner as oneself, grounding the command in the people’s own experience of being strangers in Egypt. Our memories carry ethical responsibilities. Having known vulnerability, God’s people are called to recognize when other people are placed (forced) into vulnerable situations.

This responsibility is part of our assessment of public power. Once a government uses its authority to enforce a law, it leaves open the question of whether its actions are just. We must be curious about whether decisions account for individual circumstances, and whether the force employed is proportionate. Any system that cannot distinguish between someone seeking refuge, or overstayed a visa, and someone who is convicted of a violent offense (like sexual predatorial behavior) has surrendered the critical thinking skills that justice calls for.

The consequences also deserve scrutiny. When enforcement leaves a child without a caregiver or sends someone into danger, those outcomes need moral accounting. Calling them ‘unfortunate’ does little for the people who are forced to endure them. Having authority calls for responsibility for the foreseeable harm of its exercise.

Christians should be especially wary of treating legality as the end of ethical reflection. I mean it makes no sense because there is the call to love God with everything and love neighbor as self. When asked “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus told a story that made the marginalized, the moral compass. Further, the prophets repeatedly confronted societies whose public institutions accommodated exploitation. Isaiah 10:1–2 condemns decrees that deprive vulnerable people of justice. Faithfulness sometimes requires us to question the rules themselves, including whose interests they protect and whose suffering they permit. Just because a thing is legal, does not make it righteous.

For the Church, that questioning must become a practice of presence. A frightened family may need a connection to qualified legal counsel, a ride to an appointment, help keeping food in the house, or someone trustworthy with whom to make an emergency plan. Congregations can protect confidentiality and listen carefully to what affected people say they are in need of. Immigrant members should help to shape that response because our knowledge, leadership, and judgment have valid places in the conversations about the decisions affecting our lives.

Our public witness also requires discipline. Before repeating an alarming claim, we ought to verify it. Honest conversation about migration must also reckon with the violence, exploitation, persecution, and environmental disruption that can make remaining at home unbearable. Our responsibility to seek truth increases when a falsehood could place our neighbors in danger.

I am particularly troubled by the ease with which suffering can disappear underneath administrative language. Words such as “processing” and “removal” can transmit enormous human consequences while asking very little of the speaker’s conscience. The Church must keep those consequences visible. We can hold officials and institutions accountable while honoring the humanity of the people who work within them. Our witness loses integrity whenever we borrow the same contempt we are trying to confront. Personally, I know that this is not the easiest expression to practice.

In Matthew 25:35, Jesus identifies himself with the stranger who is welcomed – and him being a migrant, of course. Identifying thus, gives our hospitality a searching theological weight. The person whose presence we debate is someone through whom Christ may address us, interrupt our assumptions, and call us into relationship.

I want the Church to be recognizable to the child who is still waiting at the door. I want that child to know that there are people who will learn their name, take their fear seriously, and stay close enough to help them and transform their circumstances. Our prayers for families should make us dependable neighbors to them. Yes, there are undocumented people. However, this does not mean that they are disposable people. 

#Immigration #Illegal #Legal #Undocumented #NeighborLove #S4814