Washington, D.C.—The month of June calls upon Americans to reflect on who we are – and what we hold dear. In celebrating PRIDE, Immigrant Heritage Month, Juneteenth and World Refugee Day, we are invited and compelled to recognize the complexity, strength, tension and beauty of what it means to be American.
This June, however, the stakes feel especially high. This June, we see our government energetically embracing rhetoric and policies that seek to vilify, harm, and exclude those who do not fit its narrow and cynical definition of what it means to be American. As humanitarians, as people of faith, and as Americans, we reject these divisive and amoral attempts to weaponize hate and bigotry for supposed political gain. From scripture, the Constitution and common decency, we know that such a path can never lead to gain, only loss. For Church World Service, June represents a timely and increasingly urgent reminder that the moral and civic character of our nation is measured not by simplistic and misguided concepts of strength, but by how we choose to treat the least among us. As Jesus taught through the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), everyone is our neighbor, and all our neighbors deserve compassion and support.
To be clear, the country has never fully lived up to these values, a shortcoming that Church World Service has called out during Republican and Democratic administrations alike. But in recent days, it feels like we are falling short of this standard, over and over again. From the White House, we see a cruel procession of racist and intolerant words and actions designed to scapegoat and harm members of our immigrant, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ communities. We watch with increasing dread as children are torn from their parents, immigrants are pulled off our streets by masked agents and sent to foreign jails, and families seeking refuge in our country – including Afghan allies who worked and fought alongside US forces – are stripped of their legal status and forced to return to peril in their countries of origin. And we witness the administration’s decision to simultaneously turn its back on at-risk refugees from around the world who have been awaiting resettlement in this country for years and instead fast-track the admission of white South Africans in a matter of months.
Such cruel and unjust behavior, steeped in an ideology of white supremacy, must be condemned for what it is – a direct affront to the long-held American values of welcome, generosity, and equal rights for all people. From 80 years of walking alongside newcomers, CWS knows – and the data is clear – that immigrants and refugees enrich our communities – culturally, artistically, religiously, and economically. They are our neighbors and friends. They are mothers and fathers working to build better futures for their children. They are business owners, essential workers and community leaders. And they are engines of economic growth, starting businesses, creating jobs, paying taxes, and contributing billions to local economies across the country.
No amount of fearmongering or disinformation can dilute the strength and relevance of our nation’s core values or the clarity and urgency of Jesus’ call to people of faith to follow his example. This June, we call upon the Administration to protect immigrants and refugees seeking safety in this country, restore the US refugee resettlement program, and cease its relentless and dehumanizing attacks on all those it deems insufficiently American. We call on Congress to defend the rule of law, uphold the right to due process for all persons, and oppose the Administration attempts to use fear, intimidation, and the militarization of immigration enforcement efforts to silence those who disagree with it. And we call upon the people of this country, wherever they were born, to hold fast to this nation’s traditions of welcoming the stranger, caring for those less fortunate, and recognizing the strength and resilience that flow from our diversity. This June, let us remind ourselves of what it means to be American.
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