Faith & Leadership
A learning resource for Christian leaders and their institutions from Leadership Education at Duke Divinity
A learning resource for Christian leaders and their institutions from Leadership Education at Duke Divinity
PRACTICAL WISDOM FOR LEADING CONGREGATIONS
Matthew Soerens: How pastors can help their congregations address the issue of immigration
Immigration is such a hot-button issue that many pastors are unwilling to broach it with their congregations. Bigstock/RodrickBeiler
Drawing on his own experiences, a World Relief official offers three tips on how pastors can help their churches address immigration in a way consistent with their Christian faith.For much of my life as a Christian, I thought about immigration primarily as a political, cultural, economic and security matter -- and rarely if ever as a biblical or missiological concern. My views on the subject mostly reflected those of my preferred cable news commentators; it never occurred to me that my faith might be relevant to the issue.
I’m not unique in that regard. Among evangelical Christians like me, for example, a 2015 LifeWay Research poll found that just 12 percent identify the Bible as the primary influence on their beliefs about immigration. In another 2015 survey, white evangelical and mainline Protestant Christians were the most likely religious subgroups to regard immigrants as a threat to American values. And while most Americans believe that the United States has a responsibility to admit refugees, most white Protestants do not.
But in my experience, those views are not shared by most pastors. In a 2016 LifeWay Research poll, 86 percent of Protestant senior pastors agreed that Christians should “care sacrificially for refugees and foreigners.” Though pastors may be troubled by the hostility that some of their members feel toward immigrants, many steer clear of the issue, fearing that it could splinter their congregations, pushing some members to withhold tithes and offerings or even to leave.
For those pastors -- especially in a time of declining church attendance and budgets -- the easiest path is to avoid the subject of immigration altogether. But that only perpetuates a deficit of discipleship, leaving formation on this critical issue to Fox News, MSNBC and social media.
A dozen years ago, my own perspective on immigration changed dramatically after I began work for World Relief, identifying local churches to host naturalization workshops. Before long, I had three distinct experiences that changed my views on immigration:
- I discovered my own “biblical blind spot” about immigrants.
- I learned the facts about immigration.
- I became friends with several immigrants.
First, pastors can address the many ways that Scripture speaks to the theme of immigration. For me, that biblical foundation began being laid in earnest when I volunteered to teach an adult education class about immigration for a United Methodist church in my area. As I prepared for the class, I began to research what, if anything, the Bible has to say on the topic of immigration -- and discovered much more than I’d imagined.
Many of the most prominent heroes of our faith -- Abraham, Joseph, Ruth, David, even Jesus -- crossed borders into another country at some point. Furthermore, the Hebrew word that most closely describes immigrants (ger, in the singular form) appears 92 times in the Old Testament, often mentioned alongside orphans and widows as uniquely vulnerable groups whom God expressly loves and commands his people to love as well (see, for example, Deuteronomy 10:17-19, Deuteronomy 24:19, Psalm 146:9, Zechariah 7:9-10).(Deuteronomy 10:17 For Adonai your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty and awesome God, who has no favorites and accepts no bribes. 18 He secures justice for the orphan and the widow; he loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing. 19 Therefore you are to love the foreigner, since you were foreigners in the land of Egypt., Deuteronomy 24:19 “When harvesting the grain in your field, if you forgot a sheaf of grain there, you are not to go back and get it; it will remain there for the foreigner, the orphan and the widow, so that Adonai your God will bless you in all the work you do., Psalm 146:9 Adonai watches over strangers,
he sustains the fatherless and widows;
but the way of the wicked he twists, Zechariah 7:9 “In the past Adonai-Tzva’ot said, ‘Administer true justice. Let everyone show mercy and compassion to his brother. 10 Don’t oppress widows, orphans, foreigners or poor people. Don’t plot evil against each other.’). In the New Testament, hospitality -- from the Greek philoxenia (literally, “the love of strangers”) -- is mandated for Christ followers.
While some students in that first class responded graciously, a few made clear that they did not appreciate my message. But in a dynamic that I’ve since observed many times, their criticism wasn’t about disagreements over scriptural perspectives on immigration. Rather, most pushback tends to be about extrabiblical concerns such as assimilation, legal status, economics and safety.
That’s why in addition to understanding the biblical perspective on immigration, pastors and their congregations also need to know the facts. In an era of “fake news,” it’s vital that we provide accurate information from unbiased, nonpartisan sources.
For me, it helped immensely to learn how our immigration legal system works today. Before, I always presumed that people seeking citizenship could go to a governmental office somewhere, wait in line, pass through a turnstile, fill out a form, pay a fee and leave with legal status -- and that anyone in the country unlawfully had no excuse for not undertaking this process.
But as I became exposed to U.S. immigration law, I learned that the current U.S. process is dramatically different from what it was when my ancestors came from Holland in the mid-1800s, a time with very few immigration restrictions.
Today, immigrant visas are strictly limited to four categories:
Christians can debate whether or not breaking U.S. immigration law is biblically justified by particular circumstances, such as fleeing violence or extreme poverty. But knowing the facts about immigration at least helps us understand why so many people decide to immigrate or to overstay a visa illegally. So often, their choice is not between immigrating legally or illegally but between immigrating illegally or staying put in challenging, even brutal, circumstances that none of us would willingly endure.
These are only the most basic facts about immigration. Many resources -- including statistics, suggested books and a church leader’s guide to immigration -- are readily available online and can be invaluable in helping church members understand the fuller story. I know that the more I learned, the faster my misconceptions melted away.
Finally, while the Bible and the facts are important, it usually takes a relationship to convert someone from xenophobia to philoxenia. For me, it was friendship with two families in my neighborhood (one a mixed-status Mexican family, the other a refugee family from Rwanda) who shared their food and their stories with me and demonstrated with their lives the falsehood of the stereotypes I’d previously believed. Local churches can help facilitate these mutually transformative relationships by connecting congregants to volunteer opportunities such as refugee resettlement programs or English as a second language classes.
For church leaders to engage such a politically fraught issue is not easy or without risk. But if they do so strategically -- guided by Scripture, equipped with the facts and informed by relationships with immigrants -- the immigration issue can be transformative for a church and its people. It can spur congregations to grow not only in discipleship but also in numbers. The witness of a local church that extends hospitality can be a beacon for immigrants and native-born U.S. citizens alike, for anyone and everyone attracted to a community of radical, Christlike welcome.
Read more from Matthew Soerens »
Beginning in 2012, FaithAction International House held a series of meetings with law enforcement officers and recent immigrants in Greensboro, North Carolina.
The gatherings were held in houses of worship and were intended to give these two communities -- which too often met only in situations of conflict or confrontation -- the opportunity to listen to each other.
The agenda at the beginning was open-ended. But what emerged was something very specific: the FaithAction ID, an identification card that gives recent immigrants and other residents a way to prove their identity, especially if they do not have access to government-issued forms of identification.
"An ID is just a piece of plastic until a human being gives it a name, a face and a story, and a community gives it value,” said David Fraccaro, a UCC pastor who is executive director of the organization.
“What we feel like we’re doing is recognizing that there’s a broken system,” he said. “And we’re trying to find a solution at the local level that builds greater understanding, trust and cooperation at a time that it’s desperately needed.”
The identification card does not entitle immigrants to any services; it merely provides a form of ID that allows law enforcement to confirm a person’s local address. Among other things, this helps prevent immigrants from being arrested -- and potentially deported -- for simply not having identification.
The model has spread to dozens of other cities in North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio and beyond.
In this interview, Fraccaro talks about the FaithAction ID project and his reaction to recent events affecting immigrants to the U.S., as well as his own vocation as an advocate for immigrants.
The following is an edited transcript.
Q: Do President Trump’s recent executive orders regarding immigration and the building of the border wall affect your work?
For me, it helped immensely to learn how our immigration legal system works today. Before, I always presumed that people seeking citizenship could go to a governmental office somewhere, wait in line, pass through a turnstile, fill out a form, pay a fee and leave with legal status -- and that anyone in the country unlawfully had no excuse for not undertaking this process.
But as I became exposed to U.S. immigration law, I learned that the current U.S. process is dramatically different from what it was when my ancestors came from Holland in the mid-1800s, a time with very few immigration restrictions.
Today, immigrant visas are strictly limited to four categories:
- Individuals sponsored by close family (a spouse, parent, child or sibling who is a U.S. citizen, or a spouse or parent who is a “lawful permanent resident”)
- Individuals sponsored by employers (with a requirement in almost all cases that the immigrant be highly skilled, with a graduate degree or “exceptional ability”)
- Individuals motivated by a well-founded fear of persecution in their country of origin (with an annual cap on admissions -- only a fraction of 1 percent of the world’s refugees)
- Individuals fortunate enough to win an online lottery (which people from Mexico, India and several other countries are ineligible even to enter)
Christians can debate whether or not breaking U.S. immigration law is biblically justified by particular circumstances, such as fleeing violence or extreme poverty. But knowing the facts about immigration at least helps us understand why so many people decide to immigrate or to overstay a visa illegally. So often, their choice is not between immigrating legally or illegally but between immigrating illegally or staying put in challenging, even brutal, circumstances that none of us would willingly endure.
These are only the most basic facts about immigration. Many resources -- including statistics, suggested books and a church leader’s guide to immigration -- are readily available online and can be invaluable in helping church members understand the fuller story. I know that the more I learned, the faster my misconceptions melted away.
Finally, while the Bible and the facts are important, it usually takes a relationship to convert someone from xenophobia to philoxenia. For me, it was friendship with two families in my neighborhood (one a mixed-status Mexican family, the other a refugee family from Rwanda) who shared their food and their stories with me and demonstrated with their lives the falsehood of the stereotypes I’d previously believed. Local churches can help facilitate these mutually transformative relationships by connecting congregants to volunteer opportunities such as refugee resettlement programs or English as a second language classes.
For church leaders to engage such a politically fraught issue is not easy or without risk. But if they do so strategically -- guided by Scripture, equipped with the facts and informed by relationships with immigrants -- the immigration issue can be transformative for a church and its people. It can spur congregations to grow not only in discipleship but also in numbers. The witness of a local church that extends hospitality can be a beacon for immigrants and native-born U.S. citizens alike, for anyone and everyone attracted to a community of radical, Christlike welcome.
Read more from Matthew Soerens »
Faith & Leadership
A learning resource for Christian leaders and their institutions from Leadership Education at Duke Divinity
A learning resource for Christian leaders and their institutions from Leadership Education at Duke Divinity
IDEAS THAT IMPACT: IMMIGRATION MINISTRY
David Fraccaro: How an ID card helps build trust between immigrants and law enforcement
Participants in the FaithAction ID program get their photos taken for the identification card, which is available to anyone in the community, but is especially helpful for people who may not have access to government-issued identification. Photos courtesy of FaithAction International.
A faith-based organization in North Carolina issues its own identification card as a way to promote understanding, trust and cooperation.Beginning in 2012, FaithAction International House held a series of meetings with law enforcement officers and recent immigrants in Greensboro, North Carolina.
The gatherings were held in houses of worship and were intended to give these two communities -- which too often met only in situations of conflict or confrontation -- the opportunity to listen to each other.
The agenda at the beginning was open-ended. But what emerged was something very specific: the FaithAction ID, an identification card that gives recent immigrants and other residents a way to prove their identity, especially if they do not have access to government-issued forms of identification.
“What we feel like we’re doing is recognizing that there’s a broken system,” he said. “And we’re trying to find a solution at the local level that builds greater understanding, trust and cooperation at a time that it’s desperately needed.”
The identification card does not entitle immigrants to any services; it merely provides a form of ID that allows law enforcement to confirm a person’s local address. Among other things, this helps prevent immigrants from being arrested -- and potentially deported -- for simply not having identification.
The model has spread to dozens of other cities in North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio and beyond.
In this interview, Fraccaro talks about the FaithAction ID project and his reaction to recent events affecting immigrants to the U.S., as well as his own vocation as an advocate for immigrants.
The following is an edited transcript.
Q: Do President Trump’s recent executive orders regarding immigration and the building of the border wall affect your work?
These policies, largely based in fear and ignorance, stand in deep contradiction to our shared faith and moral values.
We are particularly concerned about attempts to turn local law enforcement into federal immigration agents, and to penalize cities who don’t cooperate.
We’ve worked for more than four years to build trust between local law enforcement and our newest immigrant neighbors. We believe this work has clearly led to a safer, more inclusive and united Greensboro.
We are not planning to change this program.
Q: What is the mood among your constituents?
People are more concerned than they have ever been in our history. Virtually every person who rings our doorbell each day will be affected by these devastating and reckless policies.
They are at greater risk of being discriminated against, profiled, and even unjustly detained and deported without due process -- separating families and placing many of our neighbors back into the shadows of our community.
Thankfully, dozens of mayors, police chiefs and city council members across the nation are speaking out and standing strong alongside their immigrant and refugee residents, refusing to be bullied into compliance.
It is our hope that these orders only further our faith in one another to stand up, speak out and do what is right.
Q: One of your signature programs is the FaithAction ID. How does it relate to the mission of your organization?
We have a saying that an ID is just a piece of plastic until a human being gives it a name, a face and a story, and a community gives it value.
This is a time when the dominant story that is told about most undocumented folks or those with limited status in this country is one that is faceless. They are described as being a problem or just being victims.
You’re not a problem or just victims. You’re people with names, faces and stories, and you have gifts to offer, and we have much to learn from you as well. And so if this ID process really takes off, it brings about a greater sense of hope and dignity.
We didn’t set out to create an ID card. The idea from the start was to build trust.
We serve many of these individuals, and we know many victims of crimes who were unwilling to contact the police because they were afraid this would turn into an immigration enforcement case -- and this means a less safe community for all people.
Q: What was the role of the church in the meetings?
All those meetings took place in sacred space in churches, synagogues or mosques. And as a Christian pastor, I would say that sacred space really made this program take off, really solidified the trust in the room.
Law enforcement felt more motivated to wear plain-dress clothing instead of a uniform, to come without their guns in the church. They were more willing to listen and recognize the inherent dignity of all human beings.
The immigrant community felt safer. The role of the priest or other faith leaders helped to say to everyone, “This is what this space is for, to build this trust. Everyone is safe here. Everyone has a name, a story, a face.”
In creating that space, the third ingredient was the Holy Spirit that really surrounded the dialogue. You could see and hear and feel it in people’s body language, in their tone of voice, in the tears that were shed, in the vulnerability, especially, that these groups started showing to one another.
To law enforcement’s credit, the first thing that they did was listen, instead of coming in, arms folded, and saying, “These are our laws. Any questions?”
And for me, I would say the Holy Spirit was a part of that. They were willing to not get overly defensive when they heard the immigrant community say, “These are our real experiences with you all, and some of them may be stereotypes, but some of them are very real, and we have some concerns. For example: Why do you have checkpoints? We feel profiled.”
And then, because the immigrant community felt listened to, law enforcement was also able to be heard. And so law enforcement were able to come and say, “Look, I have kids and partners just like you do, and I’m scared at the end of the day. We don’t always know who we’re dealing with. Sometimes when we do those checkpoints, it’s not to profile anybody. You may not realize a major crime took place in your community last night and we’re actually out trying to find this person to make your community safer.”
One officer came forward and said, “You know what? I’ve never shared this publicly, but my parents are undocumented, and I watched them work in the tobacco fields in rural North Carolina, and I heard the names that they were called, and saw the tremendous discrimination that they faced. So I know what it’s like to be you.
“Despite all that, there’s enough good in this community, in this state, in this nation that I still was willing to protect it, and even die for it if need be.”
And you just watched people’s tears, and the laughter, and the change in body posture. And you watched this beautiful dance happen within this dialogue.
Q: And the idea of issuing an ID emerged from that?
Yes, then this idea came about to build greater trust -- as a sign of that -- so that people, when they were stopped by police, weren’t arrested for simply not having a valid form of ID.
For many immigrants, this can be the road to detention and deportation, or be on their record, which could hurt their chances for a change in status in the future.
Not to mention the humiliation that comes with being arrested in front of your family, your community, etc.
It got to the point where somebody at around the fourth dialogue said, “I’m feeling good about this, but honestly, the majority of the time we interact with you all is in our cars. And how can we build trust if you don’t believe who we say we are when you stop us? Why don’t you give us a license?”
And law enforcement said, “We’d love it. It would make our job a lot easier. But that’s not our job. That’s up to the state and federal governments.”
And that’s when we raised our hands and said, “We don’t have the power to do a license, but what if we came up with and provided the funding for a nonprofit kind of membership card that law enforcement could use?”
Initially, cities were able to accept these so people could turn on their water, etc. Unfortunately, a state law called HB318 stopped North Carolina judges, clerks, magistrates and government officials from being able to accept the ID, but it was once a proud part of the program.
And law enforcement loved it, because they’ve got bigger fish to fry than going to a magistrate’s office for three hours, and getting tied up there, and building an even greater distrust with the community.
Q: What does the ID actually stand for if it’s not an official government card?
We say it’s a tool that can be used by law enforcement, health centers, some schools, businesses and cultural arts organizations to better identify, serve and protect you.
In order to receive the ID, folks need to go through a 30-minute orientation. And we have, about once a month, what we call FaithAction ID drives.
Q: What happens at the drives?
We do these drives at houses of worship. We keep the dialogue component, so while people are waiting in line, they have a continued dialogue with law enforcement.
We have an orientation describing very clearly what the ID is and is not, and what’s required to get it.
And what’s required to get it is proof of address and proof of photo ID, the same thing the DMV requires, just an expanded list to include some of the IDs that immigrants might have that are not U.S.-issued -- an embassy ID, a national ID, a passport, things along those lines.
Q: If they already have those things, why would they need the FaithAction ID?
First, those IDs don’t have their local address. Second, law enforcement and those other sectors have no concept of what the vetting system might be in those other countries, and so the trust is simply not there.
But [with the FaithAction ID] you have a nonprofit that’s been in the community for many years. That’s where the trust comes in.
And these ID drives turn into something remarkably useful and beautiful, and bring people closer together.
Sometimes the people are able to connect with nonprofits about other services -- say, the library is there, and the fire department, and they’re bringing fliers in Spanish.
At the last ID drive, we had 50 medical volunteers, including some doctors and nurses that gave flu shots and checked people out for free.
Q: What about the criticism that you are giving documents to people who don’t deserve them, essentially?
I would say a few things. One, there’s just a huge misconception around this term “illegal.” It’s become that identifier that keeps people as strangers. It keeps them as scapegoats. It keeps them faceless.
And that runs entirely against the notion of our own faith -- all human beings are children of God, have inherent dignity and worth, no human being is illegal.
The vast majority of the people that ring the doorbell at FaithAction had a good reason for crossing a border or overstaying a visa.
How do we know that? Because we spend hours with them. We know their stories. We know the hell they went through to get here. We know the hell that they left in their home countries.
I would do exactly the same thing if I were in the circumstances they were in, even if it meant potentially dying due to lack of water. The majority of women that cross that desert are raped.
And so what we feel like we’re doing is recognizing that there’s a broken system. And we’re trying to create something at the local level that builds greater understanding, trust and cooperation at a time that it’s desperately needed.
And we feel like this is a step at the local level to address what, unfortunately, is not only a national but a global issue.
Nobody’s getting social benefits. Taxpayer money is not being used to get this ID.
It is also very important to note that this card is by no means just for immigrants. Dozens of U.S. citizens also have the card, including people who are homeless or elderly, who do not have everything required for a DMV ID card, as well as people are coming out of jail and need an ID.
Many other citizens come and get their card as a sign of solidarity, and because they too believe in a safer, more inclusive and united community for all.
Q: Is it legal for you all to do this? Can just anyone set up their own ID?
Is it legal for the YMCA to create membership cards? And again, the ID is just a piece of plastic. It’s about whether or not the community gives it value.
When our state passed the law saying that no judges, clerics, magistrates or government officials could accept this ID anymore, they also tried to say law enforcement, too.
Well, in a rare move, law enforcement pushed back in North Carolina against the Republican-dominated legislature and said, “If you kill this program, you’ll kill 3 1/2 years’ worth of trust and create a less-safe city.” And so an exception was made.
Q: Do you ask about immigration status when you create these cards?
No.
Q: How can interested citizens help support this effort?
One of the greatest things that people of faith can do right now, including all churches, is to come out and get an ID.
Most of them will say, “How can I volunteer?” And we would say, “Honestly, we don’t need you to volunteer.
“We need you to take time off of work or on a weekend after church, get in line, show your address, go through the exact same process.”
The feds or states can try to turn local law enforcement into immigration agents. So essentially, if local law enforcement choose to participate in programs like 287G, they are given the OK to pull somebody over based on suspicion of immigration status or to inquire about immigration status when they engage somebody.
This can lead to a whole host of profiling issues. If this ID card gets known as “the undocumented immigrant card,” then particularly aggressive law enforcement in 287g communities they might assume that this person is undocumented.
The fact is the card has never just been for immigrants. It is a community ID card, and many (other) citizens have this card as well, so it would be incorrect to assume that it is a card just for immigrants who may have limited or no current status.
And I can’t tell you how much it would mean to that community that you’re having to get in line to wait to go through this process just like them. That’s a beautiful act of solidarity.
Q: Tell me a little bit about your own background.
I grew up in small-town Indiana on the Kentucky border, 98 percent white, fairly conservative Christian.
I wanted at 21 to be an actor in New York City and moved to Queens, New York. For the first time in my life, I was a stranger. Thankfully, those strangers of different cultures, faiths and languages started opening up to me.
Just as I started to really embrace this diversity in my little neighborhood in Queens, 9/11 happened. And I saw that go down from the Queensboro Bridge, and my initial reaction was to go straight back to Indiana.
But something in my faith said, “Don’t give in to that fear.”
So I went to church, the Riverside Church in New York City, to begin kind of a struggle with this stranger-and-neighbor question.
This very kind woman said, “Come with us to go visit immigrants and asylum seekers in detention centers.”
I had no idea there were 250 detention centers, mostly windowless old airport warehouses or segregated parts of local jails, where on any given day 34,000 immigrants were held.
Some had criminal backgrounds, but many just simply didn’t have the right papers and were arrested at seaports or airports or on the border and put into these god-awful places.
They’re put in jumpsuits. All their possessions are taken away. There are no legal rights; nobody knows they’re even in there. I had a friend die from lack of decent medical treatment inside.
And so one visit turned into eight years’ worth of visiting every Saturday. I just -- they became neighbors. God became most powerfully alive to me inside the detention facility in one of America’s darkest corners.
They became not only friends, but they became teachers. I owe more to them than any fancy Ivy League school I went to.
And so part of me was like, “Where am I going to work now -- for the U.N.?”
But still, I really knew my Indiana roots. I knew how to speak the language. I knew the fears. I knew the hopes. I knew the cultural language.
So I went back to a place similar to that here in North Carolina, which had a 750 percent increase in its immigrant population over the last 20 years, on top of the black-white tension.
I just knew that I could probably have a lot more impact in a place like North Carolina -- and was perhaps needed there more than anywhere else.
Read more from David Fraccaro »
The volunteers know the drill:
The doors must stay locked.
No law enforcement officers are allowed on the premises without an original copy of an arrest warrant signed by a judge.
If immigration enforcement officers arrive, the volunteer on duty must call six people in order on a list kept in a black three-ring binder in the multipurpose room.
Those are among the safety protocols put into place by St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Greensboro, the first congregation in North Carolina in recent history to offer sanctuary to an undocumented immigrant facing immediate threat of deportation.
We are particularly concerned about attempts to turn local law enforcement into federal immigration agents, and to penalize cities who don’t cooperate.
We’ve worked for more than four years to build trust between local law enforcement and our newest immigrant neighbors. We believe this work has clearly led to a safer, more inclusive and united Greensboro.
We are not planning to change this program.
Q: What is the mood among your constituents?
People are more concerned than they have ever been in our history. Virtually every person who rings our doorbell each day will be affected by these devastating and reckless policies.
They are at greater risk of being discriminated against, profiled, and even unjustly detained and deported without due process -- separating families and placing many of our neighbors back into the shadows of our community.
Thankfully, dozens of mayors, police chiefs and city council members across the nation are speaking out and standing strong alongside their immigrant and refugee residents, refusing to be bullied into compliance.
It is our hope that these orders only further our faith in one another to stand up, speak out and do what is right.
Q: One of your signature programs is the FaithAction ID. How does it relate to the mission of your organization?
We have a saying that an ID is just a piece of plastic until a human being gives it a name, a face and a story, and a community gives it value.
This is a time when the dominant story that is told about most undocumented folks or those with limited status in this country is one that is faceless. They are described as being a problem or just being victims.
You’re not a problem or just victims. You’re people with names, faces and stories, and you have gifts to offer, and we have much to learn from you as well. And so if this ID process really takes off, it brings about a greater sense of hope and dignity.
The FaithAction International House hosts drives where get ID cards also serve as community-building events, where people gather, mingle and can learn about other services.
Q: Your organization held a series of dialogues over six months with immigrants and police. What was the purpose of the dialogues?We didn’t set out to create an ID card. The idea from the start was to build trust.
We serve many of these individuals, and we know many victims of crimes who were unwilling to contact the police because they were afraid this would turn into an immigration enforcement case -- and this means a less safe community for all people.
Q: What was the role of the church in the meetings?
All those meetings took place in sacred space in churches, synagogues or mosques. And as a Christian pastor, I would say that sacred space really made this program take off, really solidified the trust in the room.
Law enforcement felt more motivated to wear plain-dress clothing instead of a uniform, to come without their guns in the church. They were more willing to listen and recognize the inherent dignity of all human beings.
The immigrant community felt safer. The role of the priest or other faith leaders helped to say to everyone, “This is what this space is for, to build this trust. Everyone is safe here. Everyone has a name, a story, a face.”
In creating that space, the third ingredient was the Holy Spirit that really surrounded the dialogue. You could see and hear and feel it in people’s body language, in their tone of voice, in the tears that were shed, in the vulnerability, especially, that these groups started showing to one another.
To law enforcement’s credit, the first thing that they did was listen, instead of coming in, arms folded, and saying, “These are our laws. Any questions?”
And for me, I would say the Holy Spirit was a part of that. They were willing to not get overly defensive when they heard the immigrant community say, “These are our real experiences with you all, and some of them may be stereotypes, but some of them are very real, and we have some concerns. For example: Why do you have checkpoints? We feel profiled.”
And then, because the immigrant community felt listened to, law enforcement was also able to be heard. And so law enforcement were able to come and say, “Look, I have kids and partners just like you do, and I’m scared at the end of the day. We don’t always know who we’re dealing with. Sometimes when we do those checkpoints, it’s not to profile anybody. You may not realize a major crime took place in your community last night and we’re actually out trying to find this person to make your community safer.”
One officer came forward and said, “You know what? I’ve never shared this publicly, but my parents are undocumented, and I watched them work in the tobacco fields in rural North Carolina, and I heard the names that they were called, and saw the tremendous discrimination that they faced. So I know what it’s like to be you.
“Despite all that, there’s enough good in this community, in this state, in this nation that I still was willing to protect it, and even die for it if need be.”
And you just watched people’s tears, and the laughter, and the change in body posture. And you watched this beautiful dance happen within this dialogue.
Q: And the idea of issuing an ID emerged from that?
Yes, then this idea came about to build greater trust -- as a sign of that -- so that people, when they were stopped by police, weren’t arrested for simply not having a valid form of ID.
For many immigrants, this can be the road to detention and deportation, or be on their record, which could hurt their chances for a change in status in the future.
Not to mention the humiliation that comes with being arrested in front of your family, your community, etc.
It got to the point where somebody at around the fourth dialogue said, “I’m feeling good about this, but honestly, the majority of the time we interact with you all is in our cars. And how can we build trust if you don’t believe who we say we are when you stop us? Why don’t you give us a license?”
And law enforcement said, “We’d love it. It would make our job a lot easier. But that’s not our job. That’s up to the state and federal governments.”
And that’s when we raised our hands and said, “We don’t have the power to do a license, but what if we came up with and provided the funding for a nonprofit kind of membership card that law enforcement could use?”
Initially, cities were able to accept these so people could turn on their water, etc. Unfortunately, a state law called HB318 stopped North Carolina judges, clerks, magistrates and government officials from being able to accept the ID, but it was once a proud part of the program.
And law enforcement loved it, because they’ve got bigger fish to fry than going to a magistrate’s office for three hours, and getting tied up there, and building an even greater distrust with the community.
Q: What does the ID actually stand for if it’s not an official government card?
We say it’s a tool that can be used by law enforcement, health centers, some schools, businesses and cultural arts organizations to better identify, serve and protect you.
In order to receive the ID, folks need to go through a 30-minute orientation. And we have, about once a month, what we call FaithAction ID drives.
Q: What happens at the drives?
We do these drives at houses of worship. We keep the dialogue component, so while people are waiting in line, they have a continued dialogue with law enforcement.
We have an orientation describing very clearly what the ID is and is not, and what’s required to get it.
And what’s required to get it is proof of address and proof of photo ID, the same thing the DMV requires, just an expanded list to include some of the IDs that immigrants might have that are not U.S.-issued -- an embassy ID, a national ID, a passport, things along those lines.
Q: If they already have those things, why would they need the FaithAction ID?
First, those IDs don’t have their local address. Second, law enforcement and those other sectors have no concept of what the vetting system might be in those other countries, and so the trust is simply not there.
But [with the FaithAction ID] you have a nonprofit that’s been in the community for many years. That’s where the trust comes in.
And these ID drives turn into something remarkably useful and beautiful, and bring people closer together.
Sometimes the people are able to connect with nonprofits about other services -- say, the library is there, and the fire department, and they’re bringing fliers in Spanish.
At the last ID drive, we had 50 medical volunteers, including some doctors and nurses that gave flu shots and checked people out for free.
Q: What about the criticism that you are giving documents to people who don’t deserve them, essentially?
I would say a few things. One, there’s just a huge misconception around this term “illegal.” It’s become that identifier that keeps people as strangers. It keeps them as scapegoats. It keeps them faceless.
And that runs entirely against the notion of our own faith -- all human beings are children of God, have inherent dignity and worth, no human being is illegal.
The vast majority of the people that ring the doorbell at FaithAction had a good reason for crossing a border or overstaying a visa.
How do we know that? Because we spend hours with them. We know their stories. We know the hell they went through to get here. We know the hell that they left in their home countries.
I would do exactly the same thing if I were in the circumstances they were in, even if it meant potentially dying due to lack of water. The majority of women that cross that desert are raped.
And so what we feel like we’re doing is recognizing that there’s a broken system. And we’re trying to create something at the local level that builds greater understanding, trust and cooperation at a time that it’s desperately needed.
And we feel like this is a step at the local level to address what, unfortunately, is not only a national but a global issue.
Nobody’s getting social benefits. Taxpayer money is not being used to get this ID.
It is also very important to note that this card is by no means just for immigrants. Dozens of U.S. citizens also have the card, including people who are homeless or elderly, who do not have everything required for a DMV ID card, as well as people are coming out of jail and need an ID.
Many other citizens come and get their card as a sign of solidarity, and because they too believe in a safer, more inclusive and united community for all.
Q: Is it legal for you all to do this? Can just anyone set up their own ID?
Is it legal for the YMCA to create membership cards? And again, the ID is just a piece of plastic. It’s about whether or not the community gives it value.
When our state passed the law saying that no judges, clerics, magistrates or government officials could accept this ID anymore, they also tried to say law enforcement, too.
Well, in a rare move, law enforcement pushed back in North Carolina against the Republican-dominated legislature and said, “If you kill this program, you’ll kill 3 1/2 years’ worth of trust and create a less-safe city.” And so an exception was made.
Q: Do you ask about immigration status when you create these cards?
No.
Q: How can interested citizens help support this effort?
One of the greatest things that people of faith can do right now, including all churches, is to come out and get an ID.
Most of them will say, “How can I volunteer?” And we would say, “Honestly, we don’t need you to volunteer.
“We need you to take time off of work or on a weekend after church, get in line, show your address, go through the exact same process.”
The feds or states can try to turn local law enforcement into immigration agents. So essentially, if local law enforcement choose to participate in programs like 287G, they are given the OK to pull somebody over based on suspicion of immigration status or to inquire about immigration status when they engage somebody.
This can lead to a whole host of profiling issues. If this ID card gets known as “the undocumented immigrant card,” then particularly aggressive law enforcement in 287g communities they might assume that this person is undocumented.
The fact is the card has never just been for immigrants. It is a community ID card, and many (other) citizens have this card as well, so it would be incorrect to assume that it is a card just for immigrants who may have limited or no current status.
And I can’t tell you how much it would mean to that community that you’re having to get in line to wait to go through this process just like them. That’s a beautiful act of solidarity.
Q: Tell me a little bit about your own background.
I grew up in small-town Indiana on the Kentucky border, 98 percent white, fairly conservative Christian.
I wanted at 21 to be an actor in New York City and moved to Queens, New York. For the first time in my life, I was a stranger. Thankfully, those strangers of different cultures, faiths and languages started opening up to me.
Just as I started to really embrace this diversity in my little neighborhood in Queens, 9/11 happened. And I saw that go down from the Queensboro Bridge, and my initial reaction was to go straight back to Indiana.
But something in my faith said, “Don’t give in to that fear.”
So I went to church, the Riverside Church in New York City, to begin kind of a struggle with this stranger-and-neighbor question.
This very kind woman said, “Come with us to go visit immigrants and asylum seekers in detention centers.”
I had no idea there were 250 detention centers, mostly windowless old airport warehouses or segregated parts of local jails, where on any given day 34,000 immigrants were held.
Some had criminal backgrounds, but many just simply didn’t have the right papers and were arrested at seaports or airports or on the border and put into these god-awful places.
They’re put in jumpsuits. All their possessions are taken away. There are no legal rights; nobody knows they’re even in there. I had a friend die from lack of decent medical treatment inside.
And so one visit turned into eight years’ worth of visiting every Saturday. I just -- they became neighbors. God became most powerfully alive to me inside the detention facility in one of America’s darkest corners.
They became not only friends, but they became teachers. I owe more to them than any fancy Ivy League school I went to.
And so part of me was like, “Where am I going to work now -- for the U.N.?”
But still, I really knew my Indiana roots. I knew how to speak the language. I knew the fears. I knew the hopes. I knew the cultural language.
So I went back to a place similar to that here in North Carolina, which had a 750 percent increase in its immigrant population over the last 20 years, on top of the black-white tension.
I just knew that I could probably have a lot more impact in a place like North Carolina -- and was perhaps needed there more than anywhere else.
Read more from David Fraccaro »
Faith & Leadership
A learning resource for Christian leaders and their institutions from Leadership Education at Duke Divinity
A learning resource for Christian leaders and their institutions from Leadership Education at Duke Divinity
Church on a mission to extend sanctuary learns to live with uncertainty
Guatemalan native Juana Luz Tobar Ortega, who was facing deportation, came to live at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Greensboro in May 2017. Photos by Alex Maness
The first church in North Carolina to extend sanctuary to an undocumented immigrant facing deportation finds that the decision to open their doors is just the beginning of the journey.The volunteers know the drill:
The doors must stay locked.
No law enforcement officers are allowed on the premises without an original copy of an arrest warrant signed by a judge.
If immigration enforcement officers arrive, the volunteer on duty must call six people in order on a list kept in a black three-ring binder in the multipurpose room.
Those are among the safety protocols put into place by St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Greensboro, the first congregation in North Carolina in recent history to offer sanctuary to an undocumented immigrant facing immediate threat of deportation.
Volunteers who stay at the church with Ortega have instructions for how to respond to law enforcement.
The church added the measures to protect its most vulnerable new occupant: Juana Luz Tobar Ortega, a 45-year-old Guatemalan native who came to live at St. Barnabas in May.The election of President Donald J. Trump, who ran as an immigration hardliner and has cranked up state and federal enforcement of immigration laws, has spurred churches to offer sanctuary to those facing deportation. An estimated 1,000 churches across the country have pledged to support the efforts, including opening their doors to people fearing repatriation.
A sign at the church.
But so far, only a dozen U.S. congregations have actively provided shelter to undocumented immigrants. Notably, Greensboro, the state’s third-largest city, has two such churches. (The other is Congregational United Church of Christ.)In the four months since Ortega moved into St. Barnabas, the 125-member congregation has doubled down on its commitment to offer sanctuary and to ensure the health and safety of its fragile resident. Ortega’s arrival has united the church in a conviction that this particular form of civil disobedience is the right thing to do. But it has also added to the church workload and introduced a new level of uncertainty.
Would your organization be willing to make such a long-term, open-ended committment?
“The biggest misconception about sanctuary is that once a person is in sanctuary, it’s done,” said Andrew Willis Garces, organizing coordinator with the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization that helped the church establish sanctuary. “That’s totally the wrong way to look at it. It’s more than, ‘We’ve got them situated’; now we have to figure out a way to get them out.”
A social justice orientation
That a small church of mostly older members has taken the lead in sheltering an undocumented immigrant may seem surprising. But not to the Rev. Randall Keeney, the church vicar.
Ortega chats with the Rev. Randall Keeney outside St. Barnabas.
Small churches function more like extended families, he said, and may have greater theological and political unity. Those with older members, especially retirees, may also have more time on their hands.“People get to know each other pretty well, and they have an opportunity to care for one another more than in a corporate-type church,” Keeney said.
St. Barnabas, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, has always had a social justice orientation. Many of its members describe themselves as “children of the ’60s.” They were active in civil rights struggles and opposed the war in Vietnam.
The church building, a modern brick edifice on a flat concrete slab, is handicapped-accessible and welcoming to people with physical and developmental disabilities. Its vision statement says it works “cooperatively with other groups to provide direct community service and to effect systemic change.”
The decision to offer sanctuary reflects the church's history and values.
In more recent years, the church has been open to gays and lesbians, and its vicar has blessed a few of those relationships. He was arrested twice for marching in Moral Monday rallies protesting the Republican-led policies of the North Carolina legislature.Keeney was introduced to the problem of undocumented immigrants facing deportation at a League of Women Voters luncheon four years ago. There he met a man who had fled El Salvador to escape gangs and was applying for asylum. Soon, the congregation began helping him, his wife and his son.
Last year, when it became likely that the man would be deported, the church began to study and pray about whether it should offer him sanctuary. They learned that churches that take in undocumented persons might be breaking a federal criminal law that prohibits concealing, harboring or shielding undocumented immigrants.
What is your organization's discernment process for decisions of this magnitude?
After consulting with lawyers and immigrant advocates such as the American Friends Service Committee, they also learned that churches -- along with schools and hospitals -- are considered “sensitive locations,” meaning that federal immigration enforcement officers will avoid arresting, searching or interviewing people there under most circumstances.
Ultimately, the Salvadoran who had prompted the church’s discernment was sentenced to detention while awaiting an asylum hearing.
But in mid-May, Keeney got a call from the American Friends organization and was told that another undocumented immigrant, a mother and grandmother who has lived in the U.S. for 24 years with no criminal record, was ordered to leave the country by May 31. To ensure her compliance, ICE officers fastened an ankle-monitoring bracelet to her right leg and told her it would remain there until she boarded a flight out of the country.
Ortega's whereabouts are known to the authorities through her electronic monitoring ankle bracelet.
A church member was dispatched to meet Ortega and her family, and the vestry voted unanimously to offer her sanctuary.Ortega had initially escaped Guatemala because she was threatened by guerrillas. In the U.S., she had applied for asylum and was granted a work permit that was revoked.
After meeting Ortega and her family, the church called a congregational meeting after church services. Keeney explained the legalities involved.
Ortega would not be hiding at the church. Thanks to her ankle bracelet, immigration officials know exactly where she is.
While transporting an undocumented immigrant is clearly illegal, circuit courts have interpreted the harboring and shielding provisions of the law differently. A church was prosecuted for transporting undocumented immigrants in the 1980s; however, no church has been prosecuted for extending sanctuary in recent memory.
Have you or your faith community ever taken risks that led to learning and growth, increased workload and uncertainty? What are you willing to risk?
Some members asked about finances. How much would it cost to house Ortega? Keeney said the church would have to pay for some minimal expenses, such as cable TV and higher power bills, but that a special fund would be created that would accept donations from the community.
Finally, people wondered how long Ortega would stay in sanctuary. Keeney didn’t have a good answer. Ultimately, he said, “If we’re going to do this, we need to do this to the end.”
Then he asked for a voice vote. All present said yea.
“This was a very easy decision,” said Christine Merriman, a member of the vestry. “We had been deeply thinking about it for a while, and we didn’t have negatives.”
Round-the-clock protection
Shortly after the church voted to offer Ortega sanctuary, Keeney got on the phone with the interim bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina.
Ortega and volunteer Christine Merriman,
who stays in shifts with Ortega at the church.
He voiced the church’s conviction that in light of the nation’s broken immigration policies, St. Barnabas members felt called to extend sanctuary to undocumented people.Bishop Suffragan Anne Hodges-Copple knew of the church’s efforts with the man from El Salvador and supported them. After consultations with the diocesan chancellor, a lawyer, she decided not to interfere with the church’s plan.
While the diocese didn’t exactly bless St. Barnabas’ efforts, neither did it stand in the way.
“I would not second-guess their decision to open their doors,” said Hodges-Copple, referring to St. Barnabas. “But this is definitely not a policy of the diocese.”
Hodges-Copple said she welcomes a range of responses to the national immigration crisis, so long as congregations thoughtfully engage with the issue.
Having run the idea past the bishop, the practical work of offering sanctuary began.
A vesting room was cleared and turned into a bedroom outfitted initially with a futon (later, a queen-size bed), a bureau and a small TV. An adjacent nursery was transformed into a sitting room with a couch and a desk.
The church had two bathrooms, one for men and one for women, but no shower. Ortega’s son-in-law, a plumber, volunteered to install a shower in one of them, and the other was turned into a unisex bathroom.
Ortega, who until recently worked as a seamstress for a furniture company in nearby High Point, quickly settled in, receiving frequent visits from her husband, Carlos, a naturalized U.S. citizen, her four children, aged 15 to 28, and two grandchildren.
“So many people here have a huge heart,” Ortega said. “Without knowing me, they opened their doors. That’s something really beautiful that I will never forget.”
Ortega snapped a photo of her grandchildren in a recent visit.
The church decided early on that should immigration officers come knocking, it would not be wise for Ortega herself to answer the door.That meant someone had to be at the church 24/7 alongside her. The church arranged three shifts during the day and one shift overnight.
Scheduling those shifts fell to the Rev. Leslie Bland, the church deacon, who has been slotting 28 shifts a week for the past four months. By August, Bland had a list of 38 volunteers, mostly church members, but a few from Episcopal churches in the larger Greensboro area.
“As I hear of more names, I talk it over with Randall [Keeney], and if we’re confident we know these people, then I send out an invitation to them to sign up,” she said.
Anne Carter, a 73-year-old St. Barnabas member, has been volunteering for two overnight shifts a week, sleeping on a folding bed with a mattress in the church’s multipurpose room.
“I used to work nights as a nurse,” she said. “At least when I do nights here, I get to sleep. I sleep as good as I do at home.”
Ortega has a standing invitation to the Monday Ladies Group that meets for lunch and a discussion. To the right of the group is a recliner where volunteers pass the hours while keeping watch.
So far, the process has worked smoothly, in large part because Ortega has endeared herself to so many. She loves to cook and sew. She prepared pupusas (stuffed tortillas) for the church’s women’s group and uses her sewing machine to make pillows and tablecloths to earn a little money. One St. Barnabas church member tutors her weekly in English. Another has taught her needlepoint.Church members say they need more volunteers, though they don’t like to talk about volunteer fatigue or burnout.
“I haven’t heard any comments to the effect of, ‘No, I wish we weren’t doing this,’” said Mary Lee Rembert, the senior warden, the primary elected lay leader of the congregation. “That has not come up.”
Ortega spends time cooking and sewing, and also is taking English lessons.
Building a public campaignFor St. Barnabas, now begins the hard part: finding a way to get Ortega back to her home in Asheboro, North Carolina. Since she has already exhausted all the legal means available to her, the church must now agitate to get her a so-called “stay of removal.”
Barring the passage of legislation that would allow a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, the church must appeal to members of Congress who have direct oversight of federal immigration agencies.
“Launching a public campaign is a lot of the work,” said Garces, the American Friends organizing coordinator. “In order to get the political willpower we need to make a difference in those cases, we’ll need a lot more people of faith and religious leaders to step up, especially people less vocal about the issues already. We absolutely won’t make headway without more leadership from faith communities on this issue.”
What role do community partnerships play in St. Barnabas becoming a place of sanctuary?
Keeney has written letters to U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis and U.S. Rep. Mark Walker inviting them to share a meal with Ortega at the church. So far, neither has responded. The American Friends organization is also working on several fronts.
In the meantime, both the church and Ortega are living with a lot of unknowns.
“Being here is difficult, because you’re locked in here and you can’t go out,” Ortega said. “You feel depressed. You feel a little bit desperate.”
Still, Ortega is making do, and she is thankful for the help and support she’s received.
“They’ve been very good to me,” she said. “I’m very, very grateful. They keep me comfortable.”
Each Sunday, she attends services, often alongside her family. The church has begun reciting the first Scripture reading in Spanish, and Ortega typically volunteers for the honor.
One Sunday in August, her two 9-year-old granddaughters performed a liturgical dance to the tune of contemporary Christian singer Lauren Daigle’s “First.” Another Sunday, Ortega sang “How Great Thou Art,” in Spanish, her eyes closed and tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Who would ever say our country would be safer without her or our faith would be firmer if we allowed her to be kicked out of our country?” Merriman said. “It’s not even thinkable if you know her as a person.”
And so church members go on, holding on to the uncertainty as they rally around their new occupant. They are not alone and share notes with Congregational UCC, the other sanctuary church in town, as well as a newly established network of sanctuary churches across the country.
There’s no question the decision to offer sanctuary has at times been onerous. It has, as one person put it, “sucked all the oxygen out of the room.”
But as Keeney explained, “Being a person of faith sometimes requires we do risky things.” The gospel, he said, demands it.
Questions to consider:
- What strikes you most about the choices and actions of the congregation of St. Barnabas in offering sanctuary to Juana Luz Tobar Ortega?
- Where do you struggle most in reflecting on this story?
- The congregation entered into a process of communal discernment in order to make the decision to offer sanctuary. What is your organization's discernment process for decisions of this magnitude?
- Andrew Willis Garces of the American Friends Service Committee stresses that offering sanctuary is just the beginning of this church's committment to help Ortega. Would your organization be willing to make such a long-term, open-ended committment?
- St. Barnabas chose to take risks based on their values and practices. Have you or your faith community ever taken risks that led to learning and growth, increased workload and uncertainty? What are you willing to risk?
- What role do community partnerships play in St. Barnabas becoming a place of sanctuary? Does your organization have partners with which it can engage in this way?
Faith & Leadership
A learning resource for Christian leaders and their institutions from Leadership Education at Duke Divinity
A Texas nonprofit becomes a hub for addressing the border crisis
In a park overlooking the Rio Grande, Holding Institute hosts a candlelight vigil for immigrants fleeing violence. Photos courtesy of Holding Institute
When immigrant families poured into the US seeking asylum, a small Christian nonprofit in Laredo, Texas, had to decide: Stay focused on its core mission or revamp everything in order to meet the humanitarian needs on its doorstep?Like everyone else in Laredo, Texas, last May, Michael Smith heard all the talk about what was happening in town. Every day, dozens of Central American mothers with children were showing up at the downtown bus station, left there by U.S. Border Patrol agents after being arrested and processed for immigration violations. They spoke no English and were languishing, exhausted and hungry in an overcrowded terminal, with nowhere to sleep, eat or shower.
Then in early June, the phone rang in Smith’s office at the Holding Institute Community Center, a United Methodist-affiliated adult-learning initiative, where he serves as executive director. It was a bus-station employee. He sounded desperate.
“There are a lot of people here,” Smith recalled the bus-station employee saying. “The fire department is saying they’re going to have to close us down because of occupancy. We don’t know what to do.”
Smith explained that Holding was a community education center, not an emergency shelter, but the caller persisted.
Army cots give refugees a place to nap at the
Holding Institute.
“You’ve got to help us,” the man said.Smith agreed to think about it, but it was already too late.
More than 20 immigrants were walking up the street to the center, which normally provides classes in practical English, computer skills and literacy instruction.
Smith scrambled to retrieve a stash of Army cots from storage and then enlisted his 12-year-old son, Matthew, to teach the immigrants how to assemble them.
“We bought them food at McDonald’s, we had some fruit, and we bought water,” Smith said. “That’s what we fed them the first night. And then we really didn’t know what to do, because the next few days, more people started to show up.”
With this whirlwind of events, Holding Institute Community Center was catapulted to the front line of this year’s immigration crisis along the U.S. border with Mexico. Since Oct. 1, 2013, the Border Patrol has apprehended more than 125,000 families and unaccompanied children, many seeking asylum as they flee gang-related violence in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Overwhelmed agents have released thousands of families at bus stations in Laredo and other cities with a “notice to appear” in court.
For Holding, the crisis forced an urgent dilemma. Should the nonprofit send the immigrants away and refocus on its primary mission -- teaching local residents the most basic and practical of skills? Or should it radically revamp its plans, at least for a while, to meet the humanitarian needs on its doorstep?
Focus vs. flexibility
For faith-based organizations, the tensions between focus and flexibility are very real, said Maria Eugenia Calderón-Porter, the director of the Program for International Nonprofit Excellence at Texas A&M International University in Laredo.
“Everybody is afraid of breaking the rule or not adhering to the mission, because their funding gets stopped,” Calderón-Porter said. “But what happens in a crisis? Because I said I’d only spend it on books, I can’t spend it on food for somebody who’s starving?”
Ideally, nonprofits should have protocols in place to let them relax their standard benchmarks and adjust priorities in a crisis, she said. But Holding had no such formal provisions on the books and had to make decisions quickly.
Holding also had its own reasons to be cautious. After earlier incarnations as a seminary, a boarding school, a high school and finally an adult-learning center, the 134-year-old institution had only just reopened months earlier after falling on hard times. From 2011 to 2013, the center had been closed -- the result of low attendance, declining financial support and an unsuccessful effort to offer private day care. Having already experienced the consequences of mission drift, Holding didn’t want to make the same mistake twice.
But in the face of the crisis, Holding’s leaders did not hesitate. Soon after those first arrivals walked up the street from the bus station, the center called a community meeting in a classroom with 30 desks. The crowd was standing-room-only; 70 representatives showed up from Laredo-area churches and nonprofits.
“We just started thinking, ‘What are we going to do?’” said the Rev. Paul Harris, the pastor of Laredo First United Methodist Church and a member of Holding’s board of directors.
Holding agreed to be the primary place for showers and donated goods, with other downtown churches and faith-based nonprofits providing hot meals, medical care and case management.
Over the next month, Holding transformed itself from Laredo’s newly reopened, bare-bones center for adult education to a hub for addressing the border crisis. Volunteers would find immigrants at the bus station and get them to Holding, where they would reunite with friends, eat sandwiches and borrow cellphones to call relatives.
For hours, the immigrants would sit under the trees on the Holding campus, staffers said. After more than a week of sitting on floors, shoulder to shoulder, inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, they didn’t want to be inside any more than they had to.
Manageable transformation
Once systems were in place, the transformation was manageable. Visitors seldom stayed overnight; Holding found its niche as a day center. Kids played in a courtyard. Mobile shower units, furnished by an association of Texas Baptist men’s groups, doubled the capacity for showers at Holding. By mid-July, folding tables in meeting rooms were piled high with donated clothing and toys.
To make the relief work happen, Holding relied partly on adrenaline from its tiny staff, which included Smith, who works a second job to make ends meet, a full-time groundskeeper, who earns only about $200 a month, and a handful of teachers, who are paid a $250 monthly stipend for about 36 hours of work. Even so, employees were routinely on-site from 6 a.m. to midnight during the height of the crisis in June and July.
Clothes and other donations came from
across the country.
Holding staffers couldn’t do it all, but outside support came pouring in. A team of roofers from First Baptist Church in Athens, Texas, donated time and materials to repair a badly leaking roof. The United Methodist Committee on Relief sent 6,000 hygiene kits for distribution.The Southwest Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church sent relief supplies ranging from food to diapers.
Area faith groups and nonprofits came together to form the Laredo Humanitarian Relief Team, which now meets regularly to coordinate ongoing relief efforts.
Help came from all directions. One day in mid-July, during a lull in new arrivals, volunteers worked together in 95-degree heat to sort clothes and build a new playground.
They included people from the charity Save the Children, two Mennonites from Pennsylvania, a Methodist from Iowa, two locals from a Hispanic Baptist church and a team of four from a Mexican Methodist congregation across the border in Nuevo Laredo.
Holding’s agile response has made an impression on Laredo, giving the nonprofit new confidence.
“The fact that they’ve been able to assimilate and support this crisis to the extent that they have will show them in a different light to the community,” said Calderón-Porter, the nonprofit management expert at Texas A&M International. “By managing it as a temporary crisis, Holding has seen itself from a new perspective.”
Holding now knows it is an organization that can deliver human services along with classroom instruction.
Institution with a big heart
As all the support suggests, Holding’s rapid-response outreach has put it on the area’s cultural map as an institution with a big heart, a capacity for nimble action and a timely mission.
Volunteers worked together in 95-degree
heat to build a new playground.
Holding needed the boost. Just last year, before it reopened, roofs leaked, broken windows went unrepaired and thieves ransacked the place, Smith said. Today, much work still needs to be done, but Holding stands to benefit from its newfound prominence on the radar of local and national groups.Those groups include United Methodist Women, a national agency of the United Methodist Church and the owner of Holding’s property.
Though Holding has a local governing board and gets support from area groups and individuals, it depends also on yearly grants of $20,000 from UMW. Early this summer, UMW sent an additional $7,500 to help with migrant relief.
Holding’s work this summer is also attracting the attention of other denominational officials. In August, Hortense Tyrell, UMW’s executive secretary for national ministries, was preparing to travel to Laredo and meet with Holding’s board.
“We want to hear how we can be of further assistance to them as they respond to the immigration crisis,” Tyrell said. “Maybe we can further mobilize United Methodist Women to provide in-kind support … and see how they are progressing since they restarted their program.”
As a wild summer now winds down, Holding is still riding the wave of energy that comes from being at the center of a high-profile cause. But the crisis has been losing its urgency, with the number of new immigrants down sharply, from more than 100 a day in June and July to an anticipated 30 a week in late August.
Once the situation is resolved, Holding will have to address new issues and think through its future. If the nonprofit is now known for its rapid-response capacity, what happens after the crisis? Will it add relief work to its portfolio or return solely to its mission of community education? Will it again lose its footing and falter?
Smith is confident Holding can parlay its crisis-driven support into long-term partnerships. The investments in shower repairs, for example, won’t be wasted, even if immigration from Central America doesn’t surge again, he said. With an ample supply of cots and showers, Holding could soon accommodate church mission groups who could stay and work at the facility for a week or longer.
‘Plenty of work to do’
“Mission groups want to serve where there’s a need,” Smith said. “We have plenty of work for them to do.”
Holding became a safe place where immigrants
could eat, reconnect with friends, and receive donations of toys and clothing.
Holding has also bolstered community support by putting this summer’s relief work into the context of the nonprofit’s institutional history.In a very real sense, Smith said, the relief effort was a reclaiming of the nonprofit’s broader mission to serve women and children in need -- not just through education, but also by attending to unmet health, wellness and social needs.
As the crisis subsides, Holding definitely intends to continue working on its educational mission. They’ve dropped formal, academic English as a Second Language classes in favor of more flexible, job-oriented language instruction.
Under this approach, adult students can join a class even if they have missed the first session or two and then immediately apply what they are learning when they look for work the next day. More courses could be added soon, Smith said, including basics in the legal rights of immigrants.
Time will tell whether relief work joins adult education as a permanent part of Holding’s mission. But for now at least, the momentum is in Holding’s favor. Its new supporters believe that the institution has recovered its mission this year, not strayed from it.
“There’s an interesting lesson for me in this,” said Judy Kading, a United Methodist who came to Laredo from Greenfield, Iowa, to volunteer. “This space was, at a point in time, dedicated to service and dedicated to God, and people dropped the ball. They couldn’t handle it. The place closed. But God didn’t forget the pact.
“It’s like God said, ‘Well, there’s the Holding Institute! It’s still got a mission, and here it is!’ And human beings just have to go along with those purposes.”
Questions to consider:
- What protocol does your organization have in place to respond to urgent or changing needs?
- How does your institution’s history inform its sense of mission and ministry, both day to day and in a crisis?
- How can your organization boost its agility, its “capacity for nimble action”?
- How would a more expansive understanding of your organization’s mission change its work? What new tasks could it take on?
- Where does your organization experience the tension between focus and flexibility?
FROM THE ALBAN LIBRARY
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