To: Members of Leadership Teams (Denominational leaders, Institutions of Higher Education, local newspapers, diocesan offices, etc.)
From: Border Women’s Group
(this copy forwarded by Kathleen Erickson, RSM)
Date: September, 2007
The membership of the Border Women’s Group of El Paso, TX, southern NM and Juarez, MX is made up of women who belong to at least a dozen religious congregations, as well as lay women from a variety of religious denominations. For the last several years the group has focused on issues of immigration as being of primary concern.
Immigration has become a more serious issue with each day, and recent raids on homes and work places of immigrants in the border area and throughout the United States are creating a myriad of problems for people who are poor. The proximity of Border Women’s Group members to the border and our understanding of the causes and ramifications of these current tactics by Homeland Security compel us to try to use our connections with our religious congregations as well as religious denominations, Churches, education institutions and other venues to raise public awareness about what is happening and to denounce it publicly.
Thus, we are forwarding the letter which follows to our religious leadership teams, as well as to any venues open to us. We hope it will be reviewed, discussed, revised, and made public. Perhaps some Congregational leaders will endorse and forward it in whole or in part to their local city or diocesan newspapers. Perhaps it will be published in congregational newsletters, or inspire press conferences. Whatever the result, we must make some statement about the current situation.
Thank you.
September, 2007
On Monday, September 10, families and children living in Chaparral, New Mexico, were taken from their homes and schools in a federally funded raid by the Sheriff’s Department of Otero County. Of these, 28 were deported after being handed over to the United States Border Patrol.
This incident is only one of hundreds which have already occurred and are planned for the coming months throughout the United States. It is part of Operation Stonegarden, a federal homeland security program that funnels funds to local law enforcement agencies for “border security”.
We are deeply concerned about the lack of honesty which is the basis of these operations. Deception of the targeted immigrants to gain access to their homes is one thing, but an even larger deception lies in the lack of information U.S. citizens are provided about the structures and economic policies which have devastating effects on the poor of many underdeveloped nation. These, at least in part, result in poor people leaving their homes in Mexico, Central and South America and other impoverished countries to search for work in the United States. Immigrants do what any of us would do if left with the devastating inability to feed and educate our own children.
In this country, media headlines lump criminals, terrorists, drug dealers and immigrants in the same category. Many U.S. citizens, who object to people entering the US “illegally”, are unaware that efforts to become a legal U.S. citizen are costly and often take years of waiting. Poverty is a barrier to even beginning the process.
Michael Chertoff , secretary of Homeland Security, himself stated at the recent Border Security Conference in El Paso, TX, that the failure of Congress to achieve reform of broken immigration laws forces Border Patrol to pursue people who are coming to this country to work, and therefore distracts them from pursuing terrorists and criminals who might be crossing our borders. The conference was focused on the need for more sophisticated technology to close the US/MX border. There was no discussion of using human intelligence or compassion to develop systems which would distinguish between security threats to the U.S. and people who are poor, and treat them accordingly.
We are appalled at the fact that the response of our own government to the reality of poverty is enforcement and militarization. We object to the use of billions of dollars for technology to close borders and to deport people who have lived here for years, rather than to address the complex relationships between countries, effects of trade decisions, and the misery of human beings caught in unjust systems. The public use of “raids” and trickery in the process of seeking out undocumented immigrants reveals that we have become a nation which is quickly losing its very soul.
We protest the actions and tactics which demean parents and children and divide families, and which are administered unevenly among those who seek a productive life in service to the United States.