It’s not often you hear the words ‘sin’ and ‘immigration policy’ in the same sentence, but there is simply no other way to talk about the atrocities that this administration is committing against immigrants. Right now, entire communities live in fear, wondering if today will be their last day of freedom. Children wonder if mommy and daddy will be there to get them from school. Husbands and wives kiss goodbye in the morning knowing it could be the last time they see each other. Parents refuse to take their kids to the library or to church because they’re afraid of being picked up while out and about.
Speak about being tormented and stressed.
What’s equally bad but yet doesn’t get enough attention is the evil that is taking place at the US-Mexico border. No, I’m not talking about the flow of drugs from Mexico in the United States, or the flow of guns from the United States into Mexico, as awful and abhorrent as they are. The evil I am talking about is what our own government is doing. Ripping families apart, indefinitely detaining people fleeing violence, and charging them with crimes they didn’t commit.
What? You didn’t know about that?
It is now common practice, that when a family crosses the border and requests asylum, for the parents and children to be separated from one another, not told where the other is, detained indefinitely, and denied bond. Parents are being charged with child smuggling, a crime they did not commit, for trying to get their kids away from corrupt, gang-filled countries. Children are being ripped from their parents arms, and placed into immigrant detention facilities where private entities make a fortune off of housing them.
I’ve seen it with my own two eyes.
This isn’t simply a few rogue agents who are acting badly. These orders are coming from
the very top. From Attorney General Jeff Sessions himself. It’s a campaign of torment, a reign of terror for people running to the doorstep of American asking for safety and for refuge.
Notice what they aren’t doing. They aren’t picking up the drug kingpins who many times march effortlessly through border checkpoints. They aren’t stopping the flow of drugs that most often comes through official ports of entry, not across the Rio Grande or the Arizona desert. They aren’t addressing the flow of weapons, so easily purchased in the United States, that fuel the gang and cartel violence in Mexico and Central America. They aren’t even stopping human trafficking. They are attacking families that are coming to ask for help, for asylum.
I wonder what Jesus would have to say about that.
“Then little children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them; but Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.’” (Matthew 19:13-14)
Or
“You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” (Matthew 25:41-43)
Imagine a scared child of maybe 4 or 5 years of age, ripped from her mother’s arms, by a man who doesn’t speak her language, and shipped to a detention facility thousands of miles away. Imagine the father, screaming “I love you; I’m sorry!” to his 7-year-old son as the two are forced apart after crossing the border to ask for help.
Now imagine where Jesus would be in the midst of that, and join him there.
Blake Hart 
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