I feel scattered and am grieving today — reeling from yesterday’s news that the Trump administration is capping the number of refugees that will be admitted next year to 7,500—and that most of those will be white South Africans. This is effectively a complete dismantling of the refugee resettlement program in the U.S., which has long enjoyed bipartisan support.
A few pieces to ponder
“On the Staten Island Ferry” poem by A. E. Stallings
“and though the golden door in days like these
is shut against the yearnings of the huddled masses and the poor
she stands there, great with gravitas, clothed in verdigris . . .
‘She’s beautiful,’ says the girl, ‘even though she’s green!
She’s beautiful, even though she isn’t real!’”
(excerpt)
A Pastor’s Mission to Defend His Congregants Detained by ICE (World Relief)
“In June, a family from his church—faithful, public, and fully compliant with the legal asylum process—was detained by ICE. Marjan and Reza had asylum cases pending when they were separated. Pastor Ara has spent four months spreading their story, bringing awareness to Christians who fled persecution in their home countries only to end up in handcuffs in the U.S. Marjan spent 120 days in detention… but praise God, she’s finally free. Reza, her husband, remains detained. These families are not hiding. They’ve trusted this country with their stories and their futures.“
Two days from now is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. What bitter irony. Wondering how Christians who support Trump in this mockery of our nation’s commitment to care for refugees (regardless of faith) are reconciling that support with praying for persecuted Christians around the world.
Displacement and empathy
“What we do to each other, to other created souls. / Always I carry this burden like a child on my hip.” (from “Accumulated Lessons in Displacement“)
When I was fourteen, my family and other foreigners were evacuated from Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, following a week of violent rioting and looting of the city by soldiers and civilians fed up with corrupt government and skyrocketing inflation (I blogged about it here). That experience of abrupt displacement—coupled with my life as a global nomad—gives me a deeper empathy for others who have been displaced. This poem grew out of my own lessons learned, the experiences of dear Bosnian refugee friends, and stories I’d read of Syrian refugees’ experiences over the last few years. It takes the long view, looking at what settles, what emerges, what remains, and what connects or distances us from one another in displacement.