A Prayer for DREAMers

Last night, the immigration legal clinic I’m helping to start in Rock Hill, SC, hosted a prayer vigil for DREAMers, young adults who were brought here as children. Why? On September 5, President Trump announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, a program that protected from deportation these young adults who know no other home than the United States. We met and we prayed for them and for our leaders to do the right thing, which is provide legal status and a pathway to citizenship for these young people.

We reflected on Leviticus 19:33-34 where the Israelites were told to treat foreigners as if they were citizens. We reflected on Matthew 2:13-18 where Jesus, just like many dreamers, was taken by his parents to a foreign land to protect him from violence. And we prayed.  Below is the prayer I prayed last night. It was one of many offered up, but I wanted to share it here. Hopefully we will all be challenged to a new level of commitment to our neighbors, no matter where they came from.

Loving and caring God. Dios nuestro, que es más allá que fronteras, nacionalidades, y razas. The borders, the nationalities, and the races that we use to divide us, should instead be a sign of your creativity, of the beauty of diversity of human culture, the majesty of your design. Forgive us. Perdónanos, for dividing more than bringing together.  For allowing the color of our skin, the language of our hearts, or the status of our immigration papers to be the end all be all of our relationships. Forgive us, perdonanos, for not seeing the gifts that all your children bring to the table. Forgive us, perdonanos, for not seeing the beauty in the other’s eyes, in their culture, in their experience. Forgive us, perdonanos, for our complacency and our lack of action. Forgive us, perdonanos, for not coming together sooner, immigrant and non-immigrant, inmigrante y no inmigrante, to learn and to share together in community.

Tonight, though, God, we do come together. Estamos aquí juntos con un solo propósito. We pray we will sense your special presence with us as we pray and as we hear from Scripture. Mientras que oremos por los dreamers, and their families. We pray that you will work in and through our prayers this night. Move the hearts of those who see and hear our witness, our testimony this night. May this country do what is right, may it do what is just. Y que tu Espiritu de Consuelo esté con las familias y los jóvenes más afectadas por esa decisión de terminar DACA. Qué tú los des fortaleza y paz. And that we may learn from them what a life of love, of grace, of compassion looks like. May we live as one, just as you God are one.

Amen.