Two stories played yesterday morning on the radio. The first dealt with the wildfires in the northwest, and the lack of adequate warning systems for non-English speakers. Most of these people are migrant workers who live in temporary housing and have no personal mode of transportation, so advanced warning of impending danger is imperative. Last year an entire community was destroyed by wildfire, and the migrant workers only escaped because someone woke up in the night to the smell of smoke. Resources and will are scarce when it comes to developing Spanish language warning systems.
The second story was told by an ESL teacher. A young four year old student was absent from class for two weeks. When she called home to see where he was his mother told her that his dad’s car had broken down on the side of the road. Police arrested and deported him, and the keys were at the precinct. Mom didn’t have an ID card so she was unable to get the keys. They were also clearly broken emotionally as their family had been ripped apart unexpectedly.
The systems by which we deal with immigration and those who do not speak English well are woefully antiquated, and in many cases intentionally so. We treat immigrants as second class citizens. I can think of no other group that could suffer such awful working conditions within the borders of our country as related in the first story, or few other families that could be intentionally dismembered by the state as in the second, without a vociferous and public outcry.
That is awful and needs to be addressed, but what worries me even more is that the loudest voices being heard right now are actually moving in the wrong direction, demonizing and further marginalizing the strangers among us.
Donald Trump claimed that Mexico actively sent their thieves and rapists to us, implying that most Mexicans in our country were dangerous criminals. Chris Christie has offered the ridiculous, unaffordable, and extremely troublesome idea that we track all immigrants entering our borders as one tracks a FedEx package. Others on both sides of the aisle are either equally troubling or oddly silent.
What’s baffling is that this is taking place while the vast majority of Americans believe that comprehensive immigration reform is necessary. According to a Public Religion Research Institute poll, most Americans support reform measures that would give some form of legal status (whether citizenship or permanent residence) to undocumented immigrants currently in the United States (70% of Republicans, 78% of Independents, and 85% of Democrats). 
Are we a silent majority, that seemingly knows what is right, knows what Jesus would want of us, but who frighteningly seem willing to sit by while the common rhetoric about our fellow brothers and sisters gets darker, more violent, and more bothersome?
During election cycles there is a lot of God-talk. Candidates speak about God, constituents ask about God, and opponents criticize each other for not being godly enough, and all this while “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office…” Even so, God, through the prophets, has a lot to say about playing religion while neglecting the marginalized: the orphan, the widow, and the immigrant among others (see Isaiah 1:14-17, Ezekiel 22:7, Malachi 3:5).
While I’m aware we are not a theocracy, I wonder what God thinks about us, about our willingness to allow such God-talk to exist next to such vile rhetoric. We Christians need to reclaim our voice, we aren’t to be in the pocket of any political party, and we aren’t to be a block of votes that candidates try to pander to. We are to be the conscience of society. And right now, when it comes to rhetoric about and treatment of immigrants, it seems we are asleep on the job.
May we never forget the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
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For helpful resources on speaking out about immigration reform, check out the Evangelical Immigration Table.
Blake Hart 
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