I had a dream of Lady Liberty. She had a blindfold on, and her right arm, which had lifted the torch of welcome and hope, was cut off.
The words of Emma Lazarus, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” had been effaced from the platform on which she stood. And off to the side, unnoticed by the crowds who came and went, Jesus wept.
We have had spasms of anti-immigrant prejudice and shameful legal maneuvers before. I think of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, with consequences that endured over sixty years.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the visionary architect of the New Deal, in 1942 established the network of concentration camps that interned more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans for the duration of World War II. In some cases, the young men from these families flew airplanes and fought in infantry units for the United States while their parents and younger siblings were incarcerated. (I knew one such pilot in his later years.)
And these prejudices have caught up with white immigrants as well. I remember an elderly gentleman of German descent in my first church in Queens, New York City, narrating how the German kids stood on one side of Avenue A on the Lower East Side and lobbed rocks and insults at the Irish kids on the other side of the Avenue.
An analysis of the expropriation of this continent from the indigenous inhabitants by my ancestors or the stain of African-American enslavement on our history would take me beyond the bounds of this brief essay, but it´s all of a piece. In my view, these shameful episodes are eclipsed in our history by the glorious salad bowl of immigrants who have arrived on our shores for generations, many basking in the light of Lady Liberty´s torch as they approached Ellis Island to claim a stake in the American dream.
I think of my pastoral tenure in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in the 1980s, where Cuban and Central American immigrants reenergized our historic church and transformed a desolate stretch of Elizabeth Avenue into a bustling zone of small businesses that benefited the entire community. They gave to their adopted country; they did not take.
Fast forward to today. Post-Covid, our economic recovery has been the envy of our peer nations.
But economic inequality, day-to-day struggles by many to just “get along,” and widespread discomfort with changing mores have fueled fear and resentment in many communities, particularly more conservative and traditional ones. In this context, the Trump administration has encouraged and leveraged fear and loathing of the “other” to regain and consolidate power.
In a time of full employment, “they” are taking our jobs. In the wake of thirty years of decline in violent crime nationally and statistics showing that immigrants, regardless of legal status, are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans, “they” are dangerous criminals, murderers and rapists.
While appealing to the “illegal” status of many migrants to justify their righteous indignation, the administration has recently suspended a program that allowed migrants to make appointments online for adjudication of their status while waiting in Mexico and canceled thousands of standing appointments. To make things worse, as our borders are closed, non-military foreign aid to our needy neighbors abroad has been suspended.
In a climate of increasingly diverse ethnic, religious and personal identities and values, the MAGA movement appeals to a golden age that never was, and many of its leaders use this appeal to mask old-fashioned self-interest.
And Lady Liberty is defaced as Jesus weeps. Why is Jesus weeping?
For one, many of the architects of these policies identify as Christ followers. For another, we believe that Jesus is the heir of the prophetic tradition of Israel.
Listen to the prophets:
“You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:19).
“In days to come the mountain of the Lord´s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains . . . and all the nations shall stream to it” (Isaiah 2:2). (This promise has a particularly ironic ring in the light of a supersessionist theology, common among Evangelicals, that sees “Christian America” as a fulfillment of prophecy.)
And Jesus himself says, “I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave something to drink; I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35).
Finally, the heart of Jesus´s own proclamation is the image of the reign of God, which is the comprehensive well-being of the entire human family and of creation itself.
Quoting Isaiah, he described his mission: “To proclaim liberty to the captives . . . and to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18). And as the reign of God dawns, “waters shall break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert” (Isaiah 35:6).
In God´s eyes, there is no “us” and “them,” no “legal” and illegal.” We bless and are blessed, we prosper and bless God´s creation, together or not at all. And Lady Liberty smiles at the thought.
Adjunct professor of theology at Palmer Seminary in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. He served previously as senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Portland, Oregon, and as professor of theology and ethics at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Wheeler appeared in the EthicsDaily.com documentary, “Sacred Texts, Social Duty.”