Army Veteran Commits Civil Disobedience Against Border Wall

EL PASO – A 55-year-old Army veteran hunkered down in front of construction crews who were building the fence along the U.S.-Mexico border Wednesday, halting work for about eight hours before she was arrested.

Judy Ackerman, one of about a dozen people at a peaceful protest east of El Paso on Wednesday, was handcuffed by Texas Department of Public Safety troopers after several hours of figuring out which authority was responsible for removing her. It wasn’t clear what charges she’d face.

Work on the fence resumed immediately after Ms. Ackerman was led away. Before her arrest, the white-haired woman sporting a reflective vest and hard hat cheerfully chatted with authorities. About 20 workers were milling around the site, leaning against heavy equipment and dump trucks and taking pictures of her with their cellphones.

“They have a job to do, but today their job is to take a break,” said Ms. Ackerman, a retired sergeant major who spent 26 years in the Army.

She crossed a canal before workers arrived and took up a position on a levee where large steel poles were being erected. The levee is in a desolate area several miles east of downtown El Paso, near the 370-acre Rio Bosque Wetlands Park.

“They have this wonderful park here, and the wall is messing it up,” Ms. Ackerman said.

She was on land maintained by the International Boundary and Water Commission. Al Riera, the principal engineer for the commission, said officials were notified about her presence early Wednesday and spent several hours trying to figure out what agency should remove her.

The Associated Press

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Yale Law School Lecture on Migration

Follow the link below to hear NYU Law Professor Cristina Rodriguez’ lecture at Yale Law School entitled Burden Sharing in an Age of Migration.

The Sovereignty of the Fence

Graphiti Art in Bethlehem

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5th Circuit Court of Appeals Hears Border Wall Arguments

Today three judges from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on the rights of Baldomero and Hilaria Muñiz, and Pamela Rivas.  Both families live in Los Ebanos and are refusing DHS access to survey their properties prior to building a border wall.  Those arguments can be heard here.

All three judges are white, and all three were nominated by Republican presidents.  Judge E. Grady Jolly and Judge Edith Brown Clement seemed rather unsympathetic to the arguments of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid lawyer Jerome Wesevich, whose voice was shaky, and seemed off balance throughout his argument.  Judge Clement was the most antagonistic and offensive on the three judge panel.  She scoffed at the concern of the landowners that their properties could be severely damaged.  Although DHS’ own language says the government can destroy buildings in the way of survey equipment, she mocked the property owners’ concerns by saying that DHS “might trim some hedges.”  She also invoked the term “illegal aliens.”  And although Judge Jolly later referenced the landowners’ inability to speak English as a reason to sympathize with regular people being bullied by their government, Judge Clement seemed to think their Spanish language was making it unreasonable for DHS to do it’s job (as if we were here to facilitate our government’s attacking us, rather than the government being here to serve its people).  Judge Priscilla Richman Owen, the lone Texan on the bench, did not question Wesevich.

When his turn arrived, DHS attorney John Arbab was quickly cut off by Judge Jolly because DHS’ position is that the 5th Circuit did not have jurisdiction to hear the cases.  His basic sense of fairness was offended by the government’s claim that they could condemn property without the landowner being able to sue and appeal.  But Arbab seemed to me to successfully parry the judge’s questions and argued calmly and confidently.

Judge Clement appeared most interested to know if the Los Ebanos families were basically alone, or whether other residents along the route of the wall were also suing.  According to DHS’ Arbab, there are 250 cases, 193 “footprint cases” and 57 “right of entry cases.” (This number will increase when the Texas Border Coalition processes the more than 120 affidavits of Brownsville landowners who, thanks to the assistance of Border Ambassadors and C.A.S.A., recently started the legal process of suing DHS.)

Graphiti Artist Banksy

As for Judge Owen, I would guess that of the three, this George W. Bush appointee is our best ally.  She questioned why the pre-suit offer of DHS to landowners was $0.  She also seemed upset that DHS was suing for access to survey when independent of any survey DHS has determined that a fence is needed and has filed a condemnation lawsuit as well, thus getting the cart before the horse, and assuming the outcome of the case being argued while simultaneously making it appear unnecessary for DHS to survey.

During his time for rebuttal, Wesevich performed much better, arguing much more confidently.  Despite a comfortably closed-minded Clement, Wesevich pushed back.  Still, Judge Jolly ended the session with the statement that the landowners “need lawyers, but they don’t need lawyers,” meaning, they need someone who lets them know that they have a right to negotiate for a price, but not someone who is going to sue.  Hopefully that doesn’t mean Judge Jolly wishes to sweep the rights of border residents under the rug.

I’m not a lawyer yet, but I’d guess that these Los Ebanos families will lose their right of access cases, but that the 5th Circuit will claim jurisdiction, ensuring each landowner the opportunity to appeal.

 

The Border Ambassadors, led by Jay Johnson-Castro, passed out fliers for TRLA in Los Ebanos during the Warch Against the Border Wall from March 8 – 16, 2008.  TRLA had already announced their information session to the residents of Los Ebanos before we arrived, and it is impossible to know whether we helped encourage the members of the Rivas or Muñiz families, but I’d like to think we didn’t hurt.  I vividly remember hobbling up to Mike Johnson with his wife Cindy in the distance, also with tired legs and sore feet, handing  out our last TRLA information fliers.  We worked not until we were tired or in pain (we were tired and in pain before we started), but until we were out of fliers.

Jeanette Ruiz and her family marching against the Border Wall

Those are the kinds of selfless acts, passing out fliers after already marching all day in the hot sun, that drive this movement and make me proud of those I work alongside.  The weekend before the Brownsville City Commission met to vote on whether to give city land to DHS to build a wall, another Border Ambassador and I, Jeanette Ruiz, working in conjunction with C.A.S.A., met a tattooed and pierced young man who lives along the fence’s route.  Although he had to work until after the start of the city meeting, he said that he would pick up his mother and come late.  And thank heaven they did.  His witty humor kept me from becoming angry, and his mother, pleading in Spanish for help maintaining the home (not just the house) where she raised her family, broke the hearts of all those in attendance.  She was the heroine of the night. The courageous Dr. Tamez calmly and eloquently conveyed her conviction. Mr. Paz from Sabal Palms also provided necessary support. Mr. and Mrs. Lucio from Ft. Brown made their persuasive and thoughtful argument. Michelle Taylor and her husband were at their courageous best.  Others of us less prominent Brownsvillians made valuable input, speaking truth to power. And we will never know who influenced whom, or what the outcome of the vote would have been without all of these people acting together. But like the widow and her mites in Jesus’ parable, by finding the courage to plead with the commissioners, this humble woman from La Moria cast in more than us all.

For the sake of that woman, for the sake of the Muñiz and Rivas families, for the sake of our beloved borderlands where integration, multiculturalism and bilingualism flourish, please join with Border Ambassadors, No Border Wall Coalition, C.A.S.A., or any other organization you feel comfortable working with (and if that doesn’t work, just find a friend), and go door-to-door along the fence route, in whatever town you live, collecting signatures on the Texas Border Coalition’s Affidavit.  We need your help.

 

Video of the March Against the Wall

 

 

Hold On to Hope

Today, I gave this speech to the Brownsville City Council Meeting during the public comment portion.  The Brownsville Herald ran an article on Sunday that said that the Mayor was betrayed by the City Council who went behind closed doors to allow the Army Corps of Engineers onto city land to survey for the wall.  It is in response to that that I wrote this speech-on the back, and in the margins of the agenda.   

Yesterday, Princeton University recognized five of my 8th grade students for essays they wrote on the topic “What would Martin Luther King say and do about immigration?”  Princeton opened this year’s essay contest to my students because they used my blog, nonviolent migration, as a resource for their contest.  These five students, Melissa Guerra, Yessenia Martinez, Abigail Cabrera, Vanessa Trevino, and Blanca Gonzalez were the only five students who had the faith to submit an essay and all were recognized by Princeton. 

I asked the rest of my 121 students to speak honestly about why they had decided not to write for the contest.  The overwhelming number of students responded that it wasn’t worth trying because they felt that because Princeton is in the North, they would prejudge their work since they live on the border.  This experience reminded me once again just how excluded these children feel.   Even though this wall will be South of most of my students, my students are smart enough to know that the same motive behind this wall is also shouting at them, saying, “You are not us; keep out!” 

These students, who started with such enthusiasm when the contest was announced, lost hope and they let their fears overcome their faith.  This broke my heart because I love my students, but your capitulation is something other than heartbreaking because you are no longer 8th graders.  We expect you to hold out hope.  We expect you to keep the faith.  We expect you to work for us, and let us fight this fight. 

At this time, we want to express our love… and forgiveness… to all the members of the commission.  However, as a result of your action, we must now find a legal way to undo what you’ve done so that my 8th graders don’t come to learn that you prejudged them too. 

 

Monterey Herald article: Siding with justice if not the law.

Siding with justice if not the law

GERALD E. SHENK

Frederick Douglass began a speech in the 1840s by announcing: “I stand before you today a thief and a robber. I stole this head, this body, these limbs, and ran off with them.”

In today’s parlance, Douglass, a runaway slave, was an “illegal immigrant” into the free states. Under Maryland law in the 1840s, Douglass was the private property of Thomas Auld. Not only was it illegal for him to run away, it was illegal for others to assist him.

Article IV, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution required the authorities of any state to which Douglass traveled to arrest and return him to his owner, whether or not slavery was legal in that state.

By the 1850s, federal law required citizens of every state to assist in the capture and return of slaves. Thousands of average citizens knowingly faced arrest and imprisonment for violating this law. Some died for their refusal.

Today, every argument against “illegal immigrants” has its analog in the defense of slavery. Runaway, or freed, slaves created unfair competition for jobs; they were, by definition, criminals; they threatened social and cultural cohesion.

The only argument they and their allies had was justice.

The full article can be found here.

 

The Border Crossed Us

“The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin [read disobedience] increased, grace increased all the more.” Romans 5:20 NIV

With the advent of a nation-based quota system in 1924, many immigrants found themselves found themselves on the wrong side of a new law. Because of the quota system, it became illegal for many Mexicans to cross a border which was less than 80 years old. As the popular slogan states, “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.” Many immigrants who had been pouring in legally were obstructed, and these quotas failed to take into account the growing and dynamic needs of our country and the globalizing world. With the creation of more laws, there will inevitably be more criminals, not necessarily more peace.

The United States of America must soon decide whether it wants to continue waging the costly and ultimately self-defeating war it has been waging against immigration. The border wall, estimated at $4-8 billion dollars, and the President’s proposed $13 billion for Border Security are huge costs to stave off a necessary immigrant pool. Just yesterday, the first Baby Boomer cashed her Social Security check; at a time like this, we should be encouraging young, qualified immigrants. Who else will foot the bill for our millions of retirees?

Immigrants have always been the lifeblood of our economy, and that is no different in today’s world. In fact, immigrants are even more important in today’s economy. Immigrants bring the world economy and global competition within our borders. At a time when America is ceding its position to China and the EU as the world’s prime economic regulator, our nation must realize that it is far better to bring people into our country than to export business outside our country. For years, our production companies have been sending jobs and values overseas. Immigrants are the main reason many key “American” industries are still profitable and still centered in the continental U.S. To continue criminalizing immigrants is to ignore the rough lessons of globalization and to accept a position as an economy in decline.

Our nation is bogged down with the expense and legislation of fighting a battle that we must not and should not wish to win. China is just now re-emerging as a true world power after years of shutting its doors and walling in its borders. With its new legislation, the United States appears to be turning back the clock and starting down that same path of isolationism and xenophobia.

These are the economic and legislative reasons our nation must opt against the continued criminalization of immigrants. What follows are ideas for ways in which to nonviolently voice opposition to this philosophy. As Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in “New Day in Birmingham” from his book Why We Can’t Wait, “It is terribly difficult to wage such a battle without the moral support of the national press to counteract the hostility of local editors.” (53) This tenet still holds true. Save for a few feature stories and the publicity surrounding the May Day protests 2 years ago, the media has been largely silent or silenced on this subject. It is the duty of the active citizenry, both legal and criminalized, to inform our nation’s media sources about the true heart of the immigration issue. If every informed reader would take genuine concern and write an OP-ED piece to his local newspaper or her college newspaper, this issue would again become the conversation piece it was before it was voted down in our nation’s lawmakers. If concerned citizens in our nation’s borderlands and cities would write articles or suggest immigrant stories to editors, newspapers and magazines would cover these stories because their readership demands it.

As I write, Mayor Ahumada in Brownsville, TX, is seeking to impose a court injunction against the construction of an unsightly, ineffective, and retrogressive border fence. Whereas in the times of Martin Luther King, Jr., the court injunctions were resisting positive changes in the realm of civil rights, this court injunction and others like it are seeking to use legal means to stop our country from continuing to make an unwise decision. Support for his efforts, and the efforts of all politicians and attorneys who are fighting for immigrant rights, is much needed at this time of dire urgency.

It is time for all God’s people to echo with one voice that anti-immigrant laws and quotas are immoral and retrogressive. It is time to say “Basta! Quotas were a bad idea in the 20s, and they are just as bad now.” We cannot afford to put this off until the next election. We must not just “sit” on this issue, because it is the backbone of our nation’s future. While 12 million illegal immigrants work and reside in this country without rights or legitimacy, none of us can rest assured of our inalienable rights. While 12 million “illegal” immigrants remain unjailed, unprosecuted, unprotected and disrespected, we must ask ourselves and our politicians if our nation can long endure with this many working citizens on the wrong side of such a law. If illegal aliens can be alienated because of an unjust quota system, then the very rights of citizenship itself are unjust. We must work in every facet and every means to nonviolently inform, persuade, and insist on true immigration reform. Our country desperately needs to rediscover grace.

 

The Sword That Heals [Unjust Immigration Restrictions]

The next three week’s readings come from Martin Luther King’s most influential book, Why We Can’t Wait.  In this week’s chapter, “The Sword That Heals,” Dr. King discusses many of the same principles that we have discussed in earlier weeks.  This time, the principles of nonviolent civil disobedience are told in their historical context.

 

Civil Disobedience

            One of the most persuasive passages I’ve read about civil disobedience comes from this chapter.  Dr. King wrote,

          There were no more powerful moments in the Birmingham episode than during the closing days of the campaign, when Negro youngsters ran after white policemen, asking to be locked up.  There was an element of unmalicious mischief in this.  The Negro youngsters, although perfectly willing to submit to imprisonment, knew that we had already filled up the jails, and that the police had no place left to take them.

            When, for decades, you have been able to make a man compromise his manhood by threatening him with a cruel and unjust punishment, and when suddenly he turns upon you and says: “Punish me.  I do not deserve it, I will accept it so that the world will know that I am right and you are wrong,” you hardly know what to do.  You feel defeated and secretly ashamed.  You know that this man is as good as you are; that from some mysterious source he has found the courage and the conviction to meet physical force with soul force.

            So it was that, to the Negro, going to jail was no longer a disgrace but a badge of honor.

When I read these paragraphs, I am completely convinced that nonviolent civil disobedience—when practiced widely—has more power to break the psychological shackles of unjust laws crippling our community than almost any other principle.  Moving across international borders to pursue happiness is not wrong!  We must stop acting like it is.  We must challenge (not just ignore) the laws that prevent that pursuit.

 

Constitutional Litigation

            In this chapter, Dr. King gave a summary of the various approaches for equality since Emancipation.  He started with Booker T. Washington’s admonition to work hard, moved on to W. E. B. Dubois’s call for education, explained Marcus Garvey’s ideas about racial pride and a return to Africa, and ended up describing the NAACP’s recourse to Constitutional litigation.  It is then that Dr. King said, “Nonviolent action, the Negro saw, was the way to supplement—not replace the process of change through legal recourse.”

            This quote brings me back to a problem I have been wrestling with for quite some time, without sufficient success.  What success can we hope to see in a civil disobedience campaign without Constitutional litigation?  This is difficult because of the plenary power doctrine, which says that Congress has absolute power of the area of immigration and the courts cannot overturn its legislation.  If the Supreme Court is unwilling to apply the Constitutional guarantees to immigration law, how damaging is that for us?  How necessary is litigation in the fight for rights in the United States?

Nonviolent vs. Violent Reform

            I love King’s quote here in pages 27 and 28, and just have to share it.

          Angry exhortation from street corners and stirring calls for the Negro to arm and go forth to do battle stimulate loud applause.  But when the applause dies, the stirred and the stirring return to their homes, and lie in their beds for still one more night with no progress in view.  They cannot solve the problem they face because they have offered no challenge but only a call to arms, which they themselves are unwilling to lead, knowing that doom would be its reward.  They cannot solve the problem because they seek to overcome a negative situation with a negative means….  The conservatives who say, ‘Let us not move so fast,’ and the extremists who say, ‘Let us go out and whip the world,’ would tell you that they are as far apart as the poles.  But there is a striking parallel: They accomplish nothing.

Let us not be guilty of the same accusation.  When I am properly trained, I plan to actually do what I’m talking about.  I plan to break the law and submit myself to arrest.  I am trying to get in contact with a law student who is organizing a civil disobedience campaign for this summer in the Arizona desert.  He plans to defy the law that makes it a felony to aid someone that a reasonable person would consider to be an “illegal immigrant.”  Given that people are dying in the desert, he plans to provide food, water, and a car ride to anyone who needs it.  I’m hoping he plans to get arrested.  If so, I’ll likely join him.

 

The African American Example

            Dr. King knew this day would come.  On page 31, King said, “The Negro saw that by proving the sweeping and majestic power of nonviolence to bring about the beloved community, it might be possible for him to set an example to a whole world caught up in conflict.”  He often said some variation of,

          When the history books are written in the future, somebody will have to say ‘There lived a race of people, black people, fleecy locks and black complexion, of people who had the moral courage to stand up for their rights.” And thereby they injected a new meaning into the veins of history and of civilization.

When I study history, I am compelled to say it – to quote it just like King said it.  When I study history, I am compelled to look at the sacrifice of the hundreds of thousands who marched, the thousands who were jailed, the hundreds who were beaten, and each person who was killed, and say ‘I will not let your lesson go unlearned.’

 

The Time for Freedom [of Movement] Has Come

From this week’s reading assignment, I have just two points and a question. First, I will reexamine how King determines what makes disobedience civil. Then I will make an argument about segregation and tokenism as it regards immigration. The question I’ll leave you with is about whether we are in a time of sowing or reaping.

In contrasting the differences between civil- and uncivil-disobedience, Dr. King says:

“In disobeying such unjust laws, the students do so peacefully, openly and nonviolently. Most important, they willingly accept the penalty, whatever it is, for in this way the public comes to reexamine the law in question and will thus decide whether it uplifts or degrades man.

“This distinguishes their position on civil disobedience from the “uncivil disobedience” of the segregationist. In the face of laws they consider unjust, the racists seek to defy, evade and circumvent the law, and they are unwilling to accept the penalty. The end result of their defiance is anarchy and disrespect for the law. The students, on the other hand, believe that he who openly disobeys a law, a law conscience tells him is unjust, and then willingly accepts the penalty, gives evidence thereby that he so respects the law that he belongs in jail until it is changed. Their appeal is to the conscience.”

King lists the qualities of civil disobedience as: peaceful, open, nonviolent, and accepting of penalty. King lists the qualities of uncivil disobedience as: defiant, evasive, and circumventing of the law; and unaccepting of penalty. King lists the outcomes of civil disobedience as: public reexamination of the law, and increased respect for law. King lists the outcome of uncivil disobedience as: anarchy, and disrespect for law.

 

King’s lifelong fight was against a system that prevented all people from freely associating with those of a different race in all aspects of life. In the United States of America from (roughly) 1896 to 1965, that system was called segregation. In South Africa until the mid 1990s, that same system was called apartheid. In the United States of America, that exact system is called restricted immigration. I cannot freely associate with those who I choose to if the government tells them they do not have a legal right to be here. I think we should come up with a name for restricted migration that makes this reality clear. Perhaps the term “national segregation” could work. I’m not sure, what do you think?

 

Understanding restricted immigration as segregation makes clear that a system which gives a few people permission to enter the United States, while denying hundreds of thousands of others, is a system of tokenism. Tokenism is also giving amnesty to the undocumented immigrants currently living in the country while blocking the way for others. Ours, instead, “is total commitment to [the] goal of equality and dignity,” and not just for those currently here. This is why Reagan’s amnesty plan failed.

Abraham Lincoln and the Reconstruction Congress well understood this principle. Tokenism for them would have been emancipating a generation of slaves while maintaining the institutions of slavery and the slave trade. Our situation is no difference. We are not fighting for the Mexican; we are fighting for the Chinese, the Japanese, the Indian, the Irish, the Italian, the Mexican, and whatever ethnic group will come next. To paraphrase Dr. King, God is not interested in the freedom of movement of black men and brown men, but in the freedom of movement of all men. Our goal must be unrestricted migration, not just because it is necessary for democracy, but because it is morally compelling.

 

My question comes from this line. “The current breakthroughs have come about partly as a result of the patient legal, civil and social ground clearing of the previous decades.” While there has been social ground-clearing, there hasn’t been any legal ground clearing (not for 125 years at least). My questions are these. Would civil disobedience be premature right now? Does the legal have to preceed the social? Dr. King’s movement came after the major legal battle to end segregation (Brown v. Board). Is something similar required before civil disobedience will be effective and useful, especially given that disobedient immigrants are not jailed, they are deported? Civil disobedience is designed to change unjust laws. Dr. King used it to change unjust local laws that were out of compliance with newly implemented federal standards. Immigration law is an unjust federal law. Do we need to advance international law before we use civil disobedience to challenge the more local, federal laws?

 

Dehumanization , Hypocrisy, and the Practice of Democracy

At the end of perhaps the greatest sermon in history, Jesus of Nazareth said,

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

The difference, Jesus says, is in the doing. 2000 years later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said,

America has been something of a divided personality, tragically divided against herself. On the one hand we have proudly professed the great principles of democracy, but on the other hand we have sadly practiced the very opposite of these principles.

Dr. King pointed out that we have a problem with the doing. Notice, too, that he didn’t say we had a problem practicing equality; he said we had a problem practicing democracy.

The word democracy is Greek and means ‘rule by the people.’ According to the Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics, the first question of democracy is “who are to count as ‘the people?’” That question is at the heart of the most fundamental problem of U.S. history. It also brings us back to the problem of actually doing what it is that we say we believe. It gets back to Dr. King’s question of whether we will do what we say we will do.

Thomas Jefferson justified our disloyalty to, and war with, England with these words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Dr. King pointed out that the Declaration of Independence “doesn’t say ‘some men,’ it says ‘all men.’ It doesn’t say ‘all white men,’ it says ‘all men.’”

It has always been amazing to me that throughout the struggle for abolition/emancipation in the 1860s, and 100 years later during the civil rights movement, African Americans did not make arguments that the language of the founding was too narrow or too exclusive. Rather, they often quoted that language because they recognized that it wasn’t the language that was insufficient. It is not the language which fails us; it is our inability to believe in, and act upon, the claims made in that language. In other words, our failure as a nation isn’t that we need a new mandate, it is that we have not lived up to the mandate we started with.

This is very poignant to me because Jefferson himself had neither the capacity nor the courage to believe his own words. He relied on the institution of slavery personally and although other duties kept him from the Constitutional Convention, there is little doubt that he would have been willing to ignore his own Declaration of human equality—and dehumanize African American enslaved persons to the legal status of three-fifths of a person, and devoid of human rights—in order to form a union between the thirteen colonies.

This reminds me of Jesus and Caiaphas, the high priest. In the Gospel According to Saint John, Caiaphas and his council said,

If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation. And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.

In this passage, Caiaphas does not mean to be prophesying about the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, but rather of the expedience of killing this popular and dangerous man in order to keep peace.

When I think of Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, I have to relate it to Caiaphas. Dr. King, like St. John, was able to see the wisdom in the words of people who didn’t have a full understanding of what they themselves were saying.

It is with that perspective that I relate Jefferson and King to immigration. When are we, as a nation, actually going to believe that all humans are equal? When will accept that “there are no gradations in the image of God,” and that “all men are equal in intrinsic worth.”? When will we see that creating the classification illegal immigrant “substitutes an ‘I-It’ relationship for the ‘I-Thou’ relationship and relegates persons to the status of things.”? This isn’t only evident when people use the adjective “illegal” as a noun (thus stripping the humanity of the individual away, leaving only the legal status). It is seen when we—a country who claims that rights are not given to citizens because of their relationship with the state, but rather to persons because of human kind’s relationship with our Creator—acknowledge the rights of some, but not of others. This is the epitome of dehumanization. My personal humanity refuses to allow me to treat my fellow humans as a function of their legal status simply because “this nation” has yet to “rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’”

It is this basic belief, this basic sense of justice and fairness, this basic sense of humanity–and our distance from those ideas–that forces me to entertain the ideas of civil disobedience. If this is not a law that morality requires me to break (aiding a so-called illegal immigrant), there never was such a thing.