If You Seek, You Will Find?
Photo credit: Robert Bishop
By Robert Bishop
You are an asylum seeker. Maybe you got into a fight with the wrong person on the football field, and now you’re being threatened by one of the local gangs. [1] Maybe you were spotted at a certain political rally, and now your government has sent you a message by shuttering your clothing business. [2] Maybe you otherwise face persecution because of your “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” [3] Whatever the case, you’re afraid for your well-being, even your life.
So, you have done the unthinkable. You left home, hoping against hope that you can find sanctuary. Your plan? Present yourself at the northern border of Mexico, tell the uniforms there that you fear for your safety, and submit yourself to a battery of interviews where they’ll decide whether or not your fear is credible.
Improbably, it worked. You lucked out and found a lawyer who helped you navigate the maze of legal paperwork written in another language. You stood before half a dozen people on half a dozen occasions and told your story, feeling the terror every time, and even though they are all incentivized to say, “No,” they didn’t this time. By now, you’ve been in the system close to two years, [4] living in a camp on the home side—what you think of as the dangerous side—of the river in a tent, dependent on the kindness of strangers for your meals and other necessities. And now, you’re part of the 0.1%. [5]
Now, after all of that waiting, you’re allowed to cross. Refugees get certain forms of assistance from the federal government, but you’re an asylee, so you get a bus ticket north. There’s a sponsor waiting for you somewhere. You wouldn’t have been granted asylum if there wasn’t. Your sponsor, perhaps unbeknownst to you, has submitted to an extensive background check, proving to the government that they can support you financially. The ability to support doesn’t always translate to actual support, of course.
You also have physical, emotional, and social needs, but your new government says it’s not up to them to help you, so you turn to the private sector. Many of the people you encounter think of you as a freeloader. They’re more interested in whether or not you’ve assimilated than they are in hearing your sob story. You tried church, but it isn’t for you, either. They’re interested in your soul, not your well-being.
Your home is now half a world away—geographically, temporally, culturally. You have been granted asylum, and you are very alone.
[1] A story told in John Washington’s book “The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum at the US-Mexican Border and Beyond” (Verso, 2020).
[2] A story told by an immigration reform advocate in Matamoros during an October 2019 visit.
[3] The standard set for refugees by the United Nations in 1951, later broadly applied to asylum seekers. https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/3b66c2aa10
[4] The average processing time for an asylum case in the United States is around 728 days. https://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/apprep_backlog_avgdays.php
[5] The number of successful asylum cases under the Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP, also called the “Remain in Mexico policy”) has dwindled to 0.1% of all claims. Whatever you think of asylum, there is an enormous backlog, and one day, perhaps soon, the dam of the overwhelmed system will break. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/border-baja-california/story/2019-12-15/remain-in-mexico-has-a-0-01-percent-asylum-grant-rate
The Missional Wisdom Foundation is creating a resource for churches looking to co-create community with asylees, refugees, and other displaced persons near them. This living document draws upon our experience of equipping pastors and laypeople to imagine, launch, and lead alternative forms of Christian community, and is being developed in consultation with immigration experts and reform advocates. The project is funded in part by a grant from Texas Methodist Foundation.