Immigrants & Migration: We Are Together on the Journey
Call to Prayer: God of movement and of stillness, calm our hearts so we may recognize your presence with us now. Remembering that migration is long entwined in our collective history through the ancient story of our Hebrew ancestors who journeyed out of Egypt, help us to grow in prayerful solidarity with all who immigrate to our country. We lift up our brothers and sisters. Help us to realize that we are together on the journey.
Reader 1: The following Five Principles are taken from the “Pastoral Letter Concerning Migration” co-written by the Catholic bishops of Mexico and the United States. Let us now embrace the challenges they place before us.
Reader 2: I. Persons have the right to find opportunities in their homeland.
All persons have the right to find in their own countries the economic, political, and social opportunities to live in dignity and achieve a full life through the use of their God-given gifts. Work that provides a just, living wage is a basic human need.
All: We are together on the journey.
Reader 3: II. Persons have the right to migrate to support themselves and their families. When persons cannot find employment in their country to support their families, they have a right to find work elsewhere in order to survive. Nations should provide ways to allow for this right.
All: We are together on the journey.
Reader 4: III. Nations have the right to control their borders.
Although the Church recognizes this right, such control should not be exerted merely to acquire additional wealth. More powerful economic nations, which have the ability to protect and feed their residents, have a stronger obligation to accommodate migration flows.
All: We are together on the journey.
Reader 5: IV. Refugees and asylum seekers should be afforded protection.
Those who flee wars and persecution should be protected by the global community. They have a right to claim refugee status without incarceration and to have their claims considered.
All: We are together on the journey.
Reader 6: V. The human dignity and rights of undocumented migrants should be respected. Regardless of their legal status, migrants possess inherent human dignity that should be respected and not subject to punitive laws and harsh treatment from both receiving and transit countries. Government policies should respect their rights.
All: We are together on the journey.
Prayer (together): Guiding Spirit of Jesus, as we travel through life, we rely on Your presence in ourselves and in those who journey with us. Let us see You in the refugee family seeking safety from violence, in the migrant worker bringing food to our tables, and in the asylum seekers looking for justice. Teach us to welcome not only the strangers in our midst but also the gifts they bring: the invitation to conversion, communion, and solidarity. Amen.
-Adapted from the USCCB, Washington, DC., Catholic Relief Services
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The United Nations: A Global Perspective on Migration
In his message on International Migrants Day, 18 December, 2007, the Secretary-General pointed out that there are more people living outside their countries of birth than ever before, an estimated 200 million in 2007. He says that “behind this vast figure are individual stories – of the skilled computer engineer, the farmer working illegally, the woman trafficked against her will, the refugee forced to flee home, and countless others.” Most migrants aspire to a better life and a safer, more prosperous future for their children, and they are willing to work for it.
Millions provide essential services to the countries they live in, while supporting their families and communities at home and thereby boosting the national economy. Unfortunately, they often contend with abuses and discrimination: no protection mechanisms, discriminatory national legislation, racism, and xenophobic attacks.
The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families contains many important safeguards, but thus far only 37 countries have ratified it. (Neither Canada nor the United States has done so.) The Secretary-General’s final plea is to “replace discrimination with understanding, to benefit not just migrants but also communities and countries around the world.”
One Cause with Three Effects: Sea-Level Rise, Desertification, and Migration
The islanders of Tuvalu could lose their homes and much of their land in the coming decades, displaced by climate change. The nine tiny Pacific islands that make up Tuvalu are barely 2 metres above sea-level, and the UN climate panel estimates that oceans will rise by 18-59 cms by 2100. In fact, one study says this could happen in just fifty years. The 12,000 Tuvaluans, who live in tune with Earth and don’t emit carbon, will lose their culture and will essentially cease to exist. Moreover, no one wants them. The countries largely responsible for global warming are becoming more restrictive on migration.
But while sea levels rise, other lands dry up.
Every year land equivalent to twice the size of Belgium is lost through desertification, and the livelihoods of over a billion people are at risk. Increasingly, land degradation is a root cause of forced migration and the exodus has begun: Every year between 700,000 and 900,000 Mexicans leave their dryland homes to seek a living in the United States. In Africa, over 10 million people have been displaced in the past 20 years. By 2020, 60 million people are estimated to move from desertified areas of sub-Saharan Africa towards North Africa and Europe. Worldwide desertification has helped to spark 10 of the last armed conflicts in arid lands, causing even more migration.
www.alertnet.org and www.unccd.int
Others Are Migrating Too
Not only are the human members of the Earth community forced to migrate; other species are also on the move. As Earth warms, migratory birds and butterflies return north earlier, but they are often out of sync with the food on which they depend. The White Arctic Fox is losing territory to its more aggressive cousin, the Red Fox, as the latter moves farther north. Flora, as well as fauna, is moving: some researchers suggest sugar maple trees may eventually disappear from the United States. And then there are walls which inhibit the necessary migration of wildlife already struggling to survive. “Some ecologists refer to the fencing planned for the Arizona borderlands region as a ‘Berlin Wall’ for wildlife...walling off essential habitat for scores of species, some of them rare, threatened, or endangered, including the Sonoran pronghorn, the pygmy owl, the jaguar, and the ocelot.”
(Audubon, Sept/Oct, 2007)
-Prepared by Sister Paulette Zimmerman, SSND
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