Tag Archives: justice

“Justice shall flourish” – Living Advent

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This morning I attended (virtually) an immigration court hearing for a gentleman detained at Delaney Hall awaiting an opportunity for due process regarding his irregular status. The judge and government attorney were in the court room. The respondent was online from a very dreary closet sized room at the detention center. His attorney, and some other community supporters were online. It was quick – in fact I am grateful my nun training kicked in and led me to log in early, because when I logged in the hearing was already in process before the scheduled start time.

Before the hearing, I prayed with the readings for this second Tuesday of Advent. From Isaiah 11:

A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse,
and from his roots a bud shall blossom.
The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him:
a Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
A Spirit of counsel and of strength,
a Spirit of knowledge and of fear of the LORD,
and his delight shall be the fear of the LORD.
Not by appearance shall he judge,
nor by hearsay shall he decide,
But he shall judge the poor with justice,
and decide aright for the land’s afflicted.

And from Psalm 72:
He shall rescue the poor when he cries out,
and the afflicted when he has no one to help him.
He shall have pity for the lowly and the poor;
the lives of the poor he shall save.
Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.

Justice is not flourishing in our time for many families, especially our immigrant brothers and sisters. Today I read about some troubling developments in a post by the National Immigration Law Center that should concern those seeking justice for the afflicted of our day. ICE is trying to take away bond eligibility for long-term residents. Fortunately, just before Thanksgiving a district judge blocked a July ICE policy memo declaring that anyone who entered the country without permission is not eligible to request to be released from detention to bond, no matter how long they have been in this country. And in rare cases where bond is issued (it is a complicated process and 80% of people in detention do not have legal counsel), ICE regularly appeals the judge’s bond decision, which automatically blocks the person’s release while the appeal is pending. Due process is being systematically withheld in the supposed land of the free. Cruelty is the point, and it seems the design is to make life miserable while immigrants who have not committed (or been convicted of) any crimes are held in prison for months awaiting their day in court to address their violations of civil immigration law.

Now for some good news. The gentleman whose hearing I attended virtually today to show community support did have legal representation. He has been a law abiding resident of this country for eleven years, working and paying his taxes. He has two US citizen children. And today, the judge approved his bond at $7,000. That is a huge burden, but thankfully there are community groups who provide bond support for immigrant families. Please join me in praying that the government does not appeal the judge’s bond decision and that this gentlemen is released from detention soon and reunited with his family while he navigates the legal system and seeks to regularize his immigration status.

Living Advent means that we must realize that part of how justice and peace shall flourish is through our actions, our prayer, our advocacy, and our presence. May we live in active Advent hope and work for the day when the words of Isaiah and the psalmist are fulfilled.

Thanks and giving at Delaney Hall

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Yesterday evening I joined a group of volunteers outside Delaney Hall, the for profit immigrant detention center located in an industrial area in Newark, New Jersey. We provided support to families visiting their detained loved ones on this national holiday.

There was the mother bringing her 2 day old to meet the child’s father for the very first time. Yes 2 days after giving birth! Such a tiny baby.

There were the elementary school age kids whose eyes lit up when I showed them a selection of donated Hot Wheels cars, still in the packaging, and said they could choose which one they wanted to take home.

There was the teenager who didn’t want to leave home on a cold Thanksgiving night and the Mom who made him come so he could see his Dad on this family holiday.

There was the family in tears as they were turned away by the guard because he decided (arbitrarily) that they didn’t arrive early enough, even though they were there half an hour before the assigned visiting hour for their loved one’s unit.

There were many others. Otherwise ordinary families forced by our unjust immigration system to stand on an active driveway at night in the cold in order to see their loved one.

It felt wrong somehow to wish them Happy Thanksgiving. But they wished us Happy Thanksgiving as we passed out slices of pizza and  plastic red cups filled with pasta, warm food to feed their bodies and help them stay warm. They thanked us as we handed out blankets, hats, gloves, and scarves for them to use while they waited outside the gates for up to an hour in order to ensure the guard put them on the list of allowed visitors for their loved one’s unit.

GEO Group runs this immigration prison on a 15 year $1Billion tax payer funded contract.  Their CEO told shareholders on an earnings call that they expect to earn a $60 million profit this year alone detaining migrants at Delaney Hall.

Yet they choose not to use those profits to provide an indoor waiting area for families visiting loved ones. They recently installed a metal shed with no walls or heat on the active driveway and filled it with cold metal benches. This is insufficient and provides no safety or real shelter from the elements as we move into winter.

Federal Holidays are supposed to be full visiting days and follow the weekend daytime schedule. In fact the guards announced to visitors last weekend that Thanksgiving Day and the Day after would be all day visiting with one hour visits for each unit. Then on Tuesday a sign was posted that Thanksgiving would follow the regular Thursday evening schedule. No mention of Friday. That meant having to wait outside in the dark for a half hour visit. We wondered if they were understaffed on the holiday. In any case it led to confusion and hardship for the families.

One family I have gotten to know did not have to wait outside this Thanksgiving. After four months of detention because of his irregular status, their loved one finally was released on bond the night before Thanksgiving. His wife wrote me:

“Yes, he was set free last night!!! 🙌 We barely slept last night because we were so happy and relieved. It is so nice having him here and seeing how he is experiencing everything new again. Praise the Lord on this Day of Thanksgiving for all His wonderful blessings and how He heard months of cry’s and prayers and gave us our hearts desire.”

They now face an uphill battle with the courts, but they are reunited and he is safe. He lost a lot of weight in detention due to the conditions and the quality of food provided.

Please pray for all those in detention, 1,000 at Delaney Hall and more than 60,000 nationwide. Pray for their families. Advocate for them to receive due process and humane treatment. We cannot be silent.

(Photo borrowed from Instagram of another volunteer @christinehou. I am not in the photo as it was taken after I left a little early because my feet were so cold!)

He has need of us

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This Palm Sunday, praying as a visitor in a packed to the gills new-to-me church, the familiar readings from Luke’s Gospel spoke to me in a new and powerful way.

From the Gospel read before the Palm Sunday Procession:

Jesus proceeded on his journey up to Jerusalem. As he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples. He said, “Go into the village opposite you, and as you enter it you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. And if anyone should ask you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you will answer, ‘The Master has need of it.’

My friends, Jesus has need of US. He needs us to untie ourselves from thinking we have no power to make a positive difference in the world. He needs us to empower one another to make the way for God’s love to break into our weary world.

Because like Jesus, many innocents are being condemned by the group think of the crowds.

Pilate addressed them a third time, “What evil has this man done? I found him guilty of no capital crime. Therefore I shall have him flogged and then release him.”

With loud shouts, however, they persisted in calling for his crucifixion, and their voices prevailed. The verdict of Pilate was that their demand should be granted.

The crowds can condemn, and the crowds can also speak out and stand up for those wrongly accused. Those whose free speech rights are in peril. Those who are wrongfully deported and detained. Those whose life-saving medicine and food is stopped by greed and ideology. Those who …

Christ has need of us. Today. Now. Here in this day and time.

Will we like Peter deny Christ and His love?

Or will we help to carry the cross and seek to bring about God’s reign of justice and peace.

Life, Death and US

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As a Bernardin Scholar at Catholic Theological Union (MA in Theology 2015)  I have the honor of carrying the name of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, perhaps most recognized for his articulation of the consistent ethic of life. Simply put, human dignity and the right to life extend from the beginning of life to natural death.

As I read the news this morning, especially this article detailing the deaths that will be caused by the US backing out of its commitments to share our abundant resources with those most in need of life saving assistance across the globe, I remembered these words from an address Cardinal Bernardin gave in 1984:

“It is clearly simply inadequate simply to say that human life is sacred and to explain why this is so. It is also necessary to examine and respond to the challenges to the unique dignity and sacredness of human life today. Human life has always been sacred, and there have always been threats to it. However, we live in a period of history when we have produced, sometimes with the best of intentions, a technology and a capacity to threaten and diminish human life which previous generations could not even imagine.”

I find it tragic, indeed sinful, that those with the power of my nation today who have the capacity to protect and save life are instead taking swift, rash, and devastating actions to withhold resources from those most in need for ideological purposes. Millions of people will literally die in the coming months and years, and in our globalized society we in this country will not be immune.

One child who becomes paralyzed because we let Polio vaccines expire in a warehouse is too much. 200,000 will be paralyzed without US assistance.

One child starving is unacceptable, and these cuts mean one million children will not receive life saving malnutrition treatment.

Some of the contracts that were ended by a terse email claiming these good works were no longer convenient for the US government included:

-TB treatment for one million people including 300,000 children

-The only source of water for 250,000 people in a refugee camp in Democratic Republic of the Congo

-Malaria tests, nets and treatments for 93 million people

-A grant to UNICEF’s polio immunization program, which paid for planning, logistics and delivery of vaccines to millions of children.

-HIV treatment  350,000 people in Lesotho, Tanzania and Eswatini, including 10,000 children and 10,000 pregnant women who were receiving care so that they would not transmit the virus to their babies at birth.

The list goes on and on and we, the American people whose “convenience” was named as the reason why, will be complicit in the deaths that will result if we do not speak up and call this what it is … sinful.

I for one will not and cannot be silent.

I will pray, especially this morning for the intercession of Cardinal Bernardin.

I will act by speaking out and advocating for what is right.

I will stay informed and raise consciousness so that we can all form our conscience.

It is literally a matter of life and death.

The Dignity of Love and Public Service

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Today would have been my parents’ sixty-fifth wedding anniversary. Theirs was a partnership that was grounded in their love of God, one another, and all of God’s people, especially those who are experiencing poverty. This morning in prayer, as I reflected on what is happening in our country and to the very weft and weave of our democracy, I give thanks for all they taught me through their example about the dignity of love and public service. I am also calling for their intercession for our country at this time.

They both began their careers in public service before they met. My Dad came to Washington from Iowa in 1956 to work at the US Patent Office before going to law school at George Washington University. My mom grew up in the DC Suburbs and worked in office administration for the Department of Justice before working for NATO in Europe (Yes, she was in Paris in the 1950s!).

In my Dad’s memoir, Me? I’m from Iowa, he shares how during their courtship and after they were married, they talked about faith and politics, which were always intertwined throughout their lives.

“After meeting in May, we went out a lot. And we talked, and talked. Starting with religion, we discussed why we were both Catholic, and found that we had some devotions in common. We talked about international issues, Communism and its failings, and the need to get involved in politics. … Following up on the political discussions we had during our dating and while on our honeymoon, we said now is the time to move ahead.”

Over the course of their marriage, my parents participated in the political campaigns of others and for my Dad’s own campaigns for local elected office. Dad served as an elected judge and later member of the County Council for several decades, before moving into transportation policy at the state and federal level. Mom worked on the staff of members of Congress and in the area of social work to support incarcerated people. Throughout it all, they were guided by their faith and the Gospel call to seek justice, especially for the most vulnerable.

My siblings and I grew up with the expectation that it was our responsibility to leave the world a better place than we found it, and most importantly to use our God given gifts in service of the common good. We learned first hand the promise and possibility of good government to make systemic change in support of human dignity, such as when my Dad helped to pass fair housing laws and desegregate the public schools. We saw how important it is to use our voice and influence to advocate for justice, such as when my Mom joined protests organized against discriminatory housing sales practices in our town. There are so many more examples of their witness in action. It is no coincidence that at one point or another, all of their five children worked directly in public service.

Me in the corner at the feet of my Mom (Left), as my Dad (Right) talks with Senator Barbara Mikulski at a political event

During these times, I am feeling the pull to call on our Cloud of Witnesses. This morning I am asking my parents to pray for our country, for all public servants who are under attack, for the health of our democracy, and for those who are already being impacted by the takeover of government agencies and the rapid dismantling of life-saving programs. Eileen Schmelzer Francois and Frank Francois, pray for us.

I stand in the truth

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I choose this morning to stand in the truth–
of goodness and love and beauty–
always goodness and love and beauty.

I lean on the faithfulness of our loving Creator,
who calls us to be one human family.
Always. Everywhere. No matter what.

I walk in the footsteps of the cloud of witnesses,
real men and women who faced their own troubling times,
holding fast to goodness and love and beauty,
making them real through courageous action for the least among us.

I take up what is mine to do today and for tomorrow,
no more, no less.
That is the task.

I trust in the words of our redeemer:
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the peacemakers.
He never said it would be easy,
but all things are possible through God.