Among the endless lies coming from the White House is this persistent trope about undocumented people as criminals. Fact is that immigrants have a lower propensity to commit crime than homeborn people. And it is logical - they do not want to draw attention to themselves and get deported.
Los Angeles is home to hundreds of thousands of undocumented residents, Miami too, now that they stripped away legal status from so many refugees, who had been here legally.
Stephen Miller, the closest thing to Heinrich Himmler that I hope we will ever see in our government is pushing quotas on ICE agents causing a lot of illegal arrests. And even the arrests that are technically legal are immoral. Mothers being snatched without due process by men in masks while their children are at school.
In Methodist Christian tradition rule number one is not the Golden Rule, but rather Do no harm. This government seems to thrive on harming people. We had weak border controls over many years. People were able to quietly enter the country and work, have children, grow old, pay taxes, even paying millions into Social Security they can never collect, so they help extend the solvency of our public pensions program.
At First UMC Pasadena California, Pastor Amy Aitkins was preaching on June 15 when she heard helicopters swarming about. The ushers looked out the door to see one of these unwarranted workplace ICE raids unfolding at a hotel down the street. The next thing they knew, Pastor Amy (in her black robe and Pentecost stole), the choir and the whole congregation exited the church and walked to the hotel. Singing and praying. And ICE left. They do hate bad photo ops.
Who could ever have imagined this would be the American reality in 2025? Churches like Pasadena First, five million ordinary Americans at No Kings rallies last week - together we are building a holy resistance.
Last month on the Church is Changing podcast I interviewed Rodrigo Cruz, a brilliant church planter and Mexican American pastor in Georgia. The topic: ministry to immigrants in a time such as this. Rodrigo planted a church that included 30 nations of immigrants northeast of Atlanta. I thought he would have something meaningful to say. It is one of my favorite podcast conversations ever. I share it with you here:
https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/articles/church-is-changing-episode-73-rodrigo-cruz
Grace and peace
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