Here’s my answer: letting them come in, live near us, become citizens, and share in our resources requires more than a narrow, circumscribed version of acting good. We feel great about ourselves when we send out Samaritan’s Purse boxes. We helped feed hungry kids! But what happens when the hungry kids come to us? What happens when they have no way to support themselves but their parents have chosen to flee here so that they don’t starve or get murdered? A box isn’t going to do it.
Tell me this: Why does that choice they’ve made to come offend us? Because we’re all so committed to following every law? Seeking asylum is legal in our country. We have a history of desperate people escaping to our country. My ancestors did. Did yours?
I’m a Jesus follower. I have no argument for someone who believes that we should not share our resources with children who would otherwise be raped or burned alive in their homes, because “Why should our tax dollars have to go to them?” When I say “I have no argument” I mean we have no values in common from which I can argue. I can argue basic humanity and minimum requirements of mercy, but so far those have fallen on deaf ears. If the 10 cents or two dollars that would come out of your taxes are more important to you than a starving child’s life, and you truly believe this child deserves to sleep on a cement floor in worse conditions that we keep our convicted felons because “her parents broke the law,” then I have no hope of convincing you. We understand the world and our responsibilities in it differently.
Assuming you suffer when you see children suffer, I’m trying to speak to you as plainly as I know how: living next to children suffering all the time forces you to find a way to cope. You have to. I went home and ate dinner and fed my children dinner, and I knew some children close by were going hungry.
Yes, I tried to help–I lived there so I could help, I fundraised so I could help, we started a team and started a preschool to help–but they kept on suffering all around me. Do you know why? They’re poor. Poverty means suffering. We don’t have to see that, most of us, most of the time. I’m going crazy hearing these arguments of “Why should I care? How is that my problem? Why don’t they just obey our laws?” while I’m picturing my precious neighbor girls, Ansielli and Daniella, shivering and screaming for their mama in those cells. You and I know those arguments are abhorrent. But we also know, deep down, that we’re talking about a lot more now than going on a trip, doing some manual labor, and getting some photo ops with cute children.
We’re talking about traumatized children whom our own government has abused–intentionally, knowingly–and no rationalization can make us the good guys. Evil has been committed, in our names, against the very ones of whom Jesus said, “To such as these the Kingdom of God belongs.”
I’m not self-righteous. I saw suffering, day after day, and could not solve it, could relieve it only in minuscule ways, and — ready for the honesty bomb?— often had to focus on other things instead of taking it on directly just to be able to continue living there. Very few other missionaries that we knew in Nicaragua lived in the barrios with those suffering poverty. We did. Missionary friends told me we had achieved the best balance they had seen of being with the people and still staying rooted in the supportive ex-pat community. We did the best we knew how. And we failed and failed and failed.
I understand why people get excited about a short-term trip but shudder at the thought of wading in with undocumented people. I promise, if you commit yourself to doing something about this cruelty and abuse, you’ll be forced to face your own limits. I mean both the limits of your power and the limits of your generosity and goodness. What do you want to give up to offer someone else a better life? Is your comfort worth the chance of alleviating someone’s suffering? It may cost you and not work. Up for that?
