FOR THE JOURNEY
Imagine that you are languishing in a foreign jail alone. You don’t know a soul in this strange country.
If you return to the homeland from which you have escaped, your life is in immediate danger. Your wife and children have fled to yet another foreign country, and you wonder when or if you will ever see them again.
Hoping to be granted asylum, you exist in limbo in a cell, waiting, frightened and solitary, for the labyrinthine legal system to chew you up and eventually spit you out.
This is the reality for many undocumented individuals in the U.S.
And this is where my friend Ruth comes in. Not wearing a hero’s cape, and alas, with no super powers, Ruth is merely — but powerfully — part of a ministry of presence that a Sister of Mercy has developed in Omaha, Nebraska.
For whatever reason a Somali or a Guatemalan or an Afghan might seek refuge, if they are undocumented they can end up in jail. Our system has no other solution. Ruth and her associates are there simply to be a friend while the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the courts battle over what to do with this stranger in a strange land.
A foreign language skill can be helpful in Ruth’s work, but not necessary. Friendship is maintained through smiles and constancy.
Ruth and her Middle Eastern friend are fortunate in that he speaks perfect English and is well-educated.
“I told him he can share with me his most precious possession — his story,” she said.
He told her that in all the months he has waited in jail, she has been his only friend. She has sustained him by her visits and cards, and her willingness not to “fix” the situation — although she did help find a donor who would pay for some legal expenses — but simply to be a listening presence.
The United Nations says the 21st century has produced the greatest state of displacement of peoples in recorded history — 65.3 million people on this earth have been forcibly displaced from their homes at the end of 2015. Sometimes they have fled to another part of their country. Often they have had to flee its borders.
Ruth’s friend, who has been in jail for months, was initially granted asylum, but a higher court has remanded his case back to the lower court. The prospects aren’t good and he has no idea where he will land if he is put on a plane and expelled from the U.S.
What can we do? Pope Francis says we have a moral responsibility to be part of a solution to this huge problem.
We have a duty “toward our brothers and sisters who, for various reasons, have been forced to leave their homeland: a duty of justice, of civility and of solidarity,” he said earlier this year.
What does this mean? It means we foster a conversation of civility about immigrants and refugees, even when it’s not comfortable to do so in our present political climate. We can urge our bishops and our parishes to speak out more forcefully.
We can support what our local parishes are doing to help refugees. Often our local Catholic Charities are involved in refugee resettlement, and they need household goods, furniture, food, sometimes transportation to English classes.
Jesuit Refugee Service or Catholic Relief Services need our donations for their work with the displaced worldwide.
If every Catholic in the U.S. responded in some way to Pope Francis’ pleas, we would go a long way toward standing in solidarity with the stranger in our midst.
