Since January, over 400 immigrants have braved freezing weather to walk for miles across the U.S./Canadian border seeking refugee status in Canada. Claimants are processed and then taken to immigrant welcome centres where staff assist with finding housing, language classes and assistance in finding employment.
I wish I could have been there when the first ship rolled in
Too bad we had to wait so long for knowledge we needed
when they decided to take their newly discovered land, no matter what the cost....
-Three Feathers
These lines are from a poem I discovered in some old Indian Life files. Ever wondered what it was like for the Indigenous peoples of this land to stand on the shores of North America or the islands of the Caribbean, and watch the first European settlers sail in? Aliens from beyond the horizon? More than 500 years have come and gone since then and the negative far outweighed the good for the original inhabitants of Turtle Island.
Today, North America is faced with a similar situation and one wonders if we have learned anything at all in the more than five centuries that separate us from the first arrival day.
Dozens of refugees are walking across the U.S./Canada border in search of safe refuge. Because of recent policies being implemented by the new American administration, people who have risked their lives and fortunes to reach American shores are now escaping what they once thought would be a safe home for Canada. While the U.S. government is working hard to rid its land of "illegal aliens," Canada has been opening her doors to people who for no other reason than that they were born in a Muslim nation or bear a Muslim name, are now potential targets.
The government has said that they are only targeting those who have committed crimes, but they have been very vague about what that means.
Is a person going to be deported solely because they crossed the border without legal documents? How about immigrants who came into our countries legally but whose documents expired before their permanent residence papers could be approved? Will they be deported? Many would say yes.
Few would deny that the American immigration system is broken and needs to be fixed. Until every applicant is given the same fair treatment, we will continue to have thousands upon thousands of illegal immigrants and mass deportations.
Yes, our borders need to be secure. Politicians and national security people have been saying so for decades with very little to show for it.
Before someone questions my knowledge about immigration, let me tell you a little about myself.
I grew up as an immigrant in a foreign land. I remember returning home one Christmas to visit my family during a very troubled time in Haitian history. As I stood in the immigration line at the Port-au-Prince airport in the dead of night, all I had on me was my World Health Organization health card. No passport or birth certificate. Nothing. This WHO card was not valid for official identification as it could have been forged and used by anyone.
It was only with the help of a couple of my friends that I was able to make it through that line and allowed entrance into the country I had grown up in. I can still feel the fear that gripped my pounding heart.
Years later, I immigrated to Canada with my wife and children. Arriving as landed immigrants was much easier than that scary return to Haiti in 1966.
In all honesty, even though I have no reason to fear crossing the U.S./Canada border, I'm still anxious every time. So I can only imagine what these asylum claimants are feeling and what they are willing to sacrifice to make it to another foreign land.
As followers of Jesus, we are told that we are to welcome strangers, the destitute, and the refugee. Hebrews 11:13 reads: "...they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth."
The Jewish people were instructed by the prophet Jeremiah to "hide the fugitives, do not betray the refugees (Jeremiah 50:28 NIV).
"Let the Moabite fugitives stay with you; be their shelter from the destroyer. The oppressor will come to an end, and destruction will cease; the aggressor will vanish from the land" (Isaiah 16:4).
Not only are we to welcome them, we're to care for them. "Bring water for the thirsty...bring food for the fugitives" (Isaiah 21:14).
We commend those churches and communities who have sponsored refugees and have welcomed them, caring for them and getting them established in this land "of the free and home of the brave."
We call on the American and Canadian governments to do what's necessary to keep our borders safe from those who intend to do us harm but at the same time do not refuse to accept the refugees, the destitute, and the ones no one else wants.
And to our Indigenous leaders, what ways can we repeat the way our ancestors welcomed settlers centuries ago? In what ways can Native communities welcome refugees and share our communities with them?
Today we face challenges like never before. But may we never forget the poor, destitute, prisoners, and those escaping tyranny seeking a safe refuge.
