Tell Me a Story
by Aileen Grossberg and Merrill Silver
Tell me a story. Tell me the story of your parents, or grandparents, or great-grandparents and how they came to America. Tell me about their fears and challenges; tell me about their strivings and successes.
Now think about what would have happened if they had come to America and not been let in. Or if they had been let in and had committed a minor crime or were from the wrong country or worshipped the wrong way and were sent back to the places from where they came.
Where would you or I be now?
We each have our narrative, some of it true and some of it semi-legend.
Now, there is a new narrative developing, the narrative of those seized in hospital parking lots, outside of schools, at the dollar store, on the way to church. In 100 days of the new administration, 41,000 people have been deported.
We have all heard about the “bad hombres.” Undoubtedly, there are some people who have entered the United States who should not have. But tearing apart families, throwing Hurricane Sandy volunteers in jail, and leaving children unattended will not catch the bad people.
Thursday evening Merrill Silver and I attended a Sanctuary Congregation Introductory Training session at the First Congregational Church in Montclair. There must have been close to 100 people representing churches, synagogues and immigrant advocacy groups from Northern New Jersey, but especially from Montclair, Bloomfield and Nutley.
While the sanctuary movement has been around since the 1980s, it has changed. Several speakers explained what sanctuary in these times means and how religious congregations can get involved and how important “networks of protection” are. The legal implications were outlined as well.
Although towns are not legally required to enforce immigration laws, it may become increasingly important to have sanctuary sites in every town. Towns and counties across the nation have begun to sign onto Section 287 (g) of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act which basically deputizes local and state police as agents of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).
At the heart of the session, what all the political and social activism rests on is what each speaker kept coming back to: the faith based foundation that should spur religious institutions to care about and care for immigrants who feel threatened by ICE.
As one speaker said, Abraham was an immigrant, moving from place to place for a better life and for a dream. Where would we be today if he hadn’t been allowed to stay in the place that God showed him?
“Faith New Jersey” the provider of the seminar.
On Tuesday, June 13, at 7: p.m. Faith in New Jersey will be sponsoring a Leadership Outreach Workshop at the Bethany Baptist Church, 275 Market Street in Newark (map). If you are interested in finding out more about this movement and attending the meeting or receiving information about future meetings, please let me (Aileen Grossberg) know at email hidden; JavaScript is required.
Together let’s remember our immigrant story and help write a new one for today’s immigrants.
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