Immigrants Are Suffering. Don’t Look Away

We need to keep aware of what we, the people of the United States of America, are doing to immigrants right now.

When I write the phrase “we, the people of the United States of America,” I’m not just being flowery. I’m reminding you that the United States is supposed to be a republic, which is a type of democracy. A democracy is a government of, by, and for the people. What your representatives in the government do, they do with our tax dollars in our name. We’re the ones who are doing it. That’s how democracy works. We need to look squarely at what’s being done, because what’s being done is being done in our name.

There is so much news about what’s being done to immigrants all over the country that it’s hard to keep up. I’m just going to write about two different news items today. There’s been a terrible raid on California farm workers just as I began drafting this article, and that raid deserves its own piece, so I’m going to write about that separately on my substack as soon as possible. For now I just want to talk about Bishop Rojas’s decision to suspend the Sunday Mass obligation, and about the first reporting on the conditions on the prison dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Two parishes in the Diocese of San Bernardino have been terrorized by Immigration raids lately, and several worshippers have been arrested. In response to this, last month, Bishop Alberto Rojas published a letter in which he stated, “Authorities are now seizing brothers and sisters indiscriminately, without respect for their right to due process and their dignity as children of God. I say once again to our immigrant communities who are bearing the trauma and injustice of these tactics that your Church walks with you and supports you. We join you in carrying this very difficult cross.” He also pleaded “I ask all political leaders and decision-makers to please reconsider and cease these tactics immediately, in favor of an approach that respects human rights and human dignity and builds toward a more lasting, comprehensive reform of our immigration system.” On July 8th, he also released a decree dispensing any of the faithful who have “genuine fear of immigration enforcement actions” from their obligation to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation.

Technically, of course, he didn’t have to dispense the obligation, because you’re never obliged to go to Sunday Mass if doing so would put you in danger. Anyone who faces being dragged away by masked men in a truck should feel free to stay home whether the bishop says they can or not. But I’m glad he went ahead and suspended the obligation in such a formal way. Putting it in writing might relieve the guilt of scrupulous people who feel they have to put themselves in danger. I’m also glad because the bishop issuing an announcement like this draws the attention of everyone in the diocese to how severe the emergency is. That’s instructing the ignorant, a Spiritual Work of Mercy.

And this emergency is extremely severe.

Remember what I said last week. Countries have a right to protect their citizens from danger. We can and should vet people coming into the country to make sure they’re not a danger to us. People who come to our country can and should try to abide by the law. But no one loses their personhood just by crossing a border. We as Catholic Christians are morally required to welcome and be kind to people who come to us for help, and to be just and merciful even to the worst criminals. No one loses their human dignity because they’re in a different country. As Americans, our law states that merely crossing a border the wrong way is only a misdemeanor. And our constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment for anyone, not just citizens. People who commit misdemeanors should be treated as misdemeanor offenders. And even the worst offenders, even murderers and sex offenders, must be imprisoned in humane conditions and not tortured.

You and I can get into an argument about exactly what we’re supposed to do with people who are here illegally, and neither of us would be committing a moral wrong by disagreeing. Maybe I think we should detain immigrants in a humane facility while they learn English and civics, and then quickly give them a path to legal residency and a nice place to live– but you think we should detain those immigrants in a humane facility and only let a few stay legally, while the rest are sent back to their home country if they’re not in danger. That’s an argument we can have, and one of us may be right and the other is wrong, but neither of us is defending an atrocity.

But the current actions of the Trump administration actually are an atrocity.

First of all, despite what you might have heard, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement are not just holding undocumented migrants who are dangerous criminals  in detention. They’re doing it to legal green card holders who haven’t even been convicted of any crime– including one man who denies he committed a crime, who hasn’t had a trial, and who paid his whole bail, but was sent there anyway. There is also a DACA recipient, whose only crime was driving with a suspended license, who paid his bond but hasn’t been released.

Remember that the term “concentration camp” has a definition; it doesn’t just mean “the worst thing ever.” The difference between a concentration camp and any other sort of prison, is that concentration camps imprison people indefinitely, concentrated into a small space, without due process, because of their perceived threat to the country instead of for a crime they committed. And that is what is happening at the “Alligator Alcatraz” facility. The facility, by definition, is a concentration camp. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s right or wrong. That’s what it is.

This week, we know that the conditions there are as bad as you’d imagine. The prisoners report that they are in cages with bright lights on 24 hours a day. They are constantly bitten by mosquitoes. The cells were kept painfully cold at night until the air conditioning shut off, leaving them sweltering. The toilets are in the same cages as the bunk beds, there’s no water to flush them, and they constantly overflow. The food comes once a day, and when it comes there are maggots in it. Prisoners are being denied medication. They go days without a shower.

This is a story that’s been corroborated by several different accounts. Government officials deny that it’s the case; they just expect us to take their word for it while refusing to let the press into the facility to see for themselves.  Who do you think is telling the truth?

Are you proud that this is being done in our name?

If you think undocumented migrants ought to be detained and punished for crossing our border, we can have that conversation. But are you happy that they’re being detained in a filthy concentration camp, with sewage all over the floor and only one meal a day, in our name? If so, why? What is this accomplishing that detaining them in a humane way and giving them due process wouldn’t?

Do you want your fellow Catholics to be afraid to go to Mass? Why? Do you think it makes the country safer? Or do you have a different reason?

When this moment is written about in the history books, do you want future generations to think you were happy this was done in your name?

If not, pay attention. Don’t look away.

Speak out loudly, while you still can.