"We Are Immigrants, We Must Not Be Indifferent"
John Keller
Sunday, June 17th 2007

A couple of thanks before I begin --

To my beautiful wife and partner of 17 years, Lita, (our anniversary was Friday) – I would be nothing without you. Through your difficult struggles to overcome miscarriages, and to endure month after month of bedrest on 2 different occasions, the gift of your love allows ME, somehow it seems unjustly, to celebrate father’s day.

And to my three children Gabriel 15, Johanna 11, and Ana 6 – you are my joy and the reason why we cannot wait to change the world. When your mother and I agreed to try bring children into a world with so much injustice, it was always with the understanding that we would have to work to make it a better place. I never knew that through your beautiful hearts and souls, your own quests for kindness and peace, and your unconditional love, that it would often be you who have kept me from losing hope.

I must also thank Julie Madden, Rose Grengs and others here at St. Joan’s who support immigrant rights and immigration reform with renewed resolve (please stop by the tables outside after mass!).

PERSONAL
I was asked to make this personal and to explain why I do what I do.

I only ask God

Sólo le pido a Dios

That I be not indifferent to suffering,

que el dolor no me sea indiferente

That death’s hangover will not find me

que la resaca muerte no me encuentre

Hollow and alone, without having given my everything.

vacío y solo, sin haber hecho lo suficiente.
Leon Gieco, Argentina, 1978

If I planned to truly live up to what was expected of me, I decided I must have a first-hand, unblemished understanding of what the poor face. For if I dared to dedicate myself to justice, I had better be credible and know what I was talking about. Within the first 6 months of college I was lucky enough to volunteer side-by-side with Mitch Snyder in his efforts to shelter the homeless in our nation’s capitol. Twelve months later I was picking coffee with the women and children of Nicaragua in the final years of the Sandanistas. Six months after that I left for Peru for what was supposed to be a year of service but I am pleased to say has instead turned into my life. Peru has given me many things, but none greater than Lita my wife and partner, our three amazing children, and a second home where I am an immigrant and a foreigner, and have never felt more welcome.

My time in Peru taught me that there was a vast world beyond our borders where the struggle for survival is real and plays itself out every day. At the age of 19, with rudimentary Spanish, I confronted the unfathomable: children and babies dying of malnutrition and diarrhea while fathers stood in unemployment ranks of 50% or more and inflation rose to over 20,000 % in one year. The Shining Path used unspeakable violence to turn civilization upside down and the Peruvian military and government used unspeakable violence to keep things the way they had been. The poor, always caught in the middle, were the ones who paid the price in blood. Approximately 70,000 persons were killed or disappeared and almost 80% of them were rural farmers who spoke an indigenous dialect, Quechua. Needless to say it was eye-opening and impossible to remain indifferent to its effect on my fellow brothers and sisters.

Countless tragedies have befallen and continue to befall country after country from which my clients of today are forced to flee. The Second Vatican Council, I learned in Peru through the founder of Liberation Theology, calls on you and I and the Catholic Church in its entirety, to show a ‘Preferential Option for God’s Poor.’ Not out of pity or begrudging obedience, I am convinced, but because they are the key to helping us keep things in perspective and to helping us be the decent persons we are called to be. To not taking ourselves and the worlds we cocoon ourselves in here, too seriously. I daresay, no one who has a heart opened to the suffering of the poor is ever as self-centered afterwards as they were before.

To me that Preferential Option began while working beside dedicated individuals who made justice their daily work in Peru. One such man was one of the most courageous lawyers in Peru dedicated to protecting human rights. He denounced Shining Path and Government violence equally. It nearly cost him his life but he displayed tremendous courage in speaking truth to injustice.

His work showed me that an individual with determination, training, and support can make a difference. His dedication lead me to rethink my disdain for lawyers and to eventually become a lawyer myself.

DOING JUSTICE THROUGH IMMIGRATION LAW
When I graduated from law school I was fortunate to begin working at the ILCM. In the nine years I have worked there I have met amazing persons from all over the world that have given me the great honor of serving them in my capacity as a lawyer. Last year alone our office represented over 1,400 persons from 76 different countries.

Today on Father’s day, I want to share with you some of the father’s I have been honored to know through my work – as the world, through today’s immigrants and refugees, have come to Minnesota. Some of their names have been changed. Their stories, and thousands more, are why I continue to work in this field despite terrible laws and unjust results in so many circumstances.

I have had the highest privilege of being part of the beginning of a new life for such ‘salt-of-the-earth’ persons as Mohammed – an Ethiopian refugee, a father of 12, jailed and tortured for his Muslim teachings, forced to nearly starve as a refugee in Kenya, separated from his family for years with no knowledge of whether they were alive or dead under the brutal Mengistu regime know as the Red Terror. He worked in the U.S. in poultry plants and doing janitorial work. He eventually found his 11 children and wife in a refugee camp and eventually was able to bring them to the U.S. He suffered a near fatal car crash, recovered enough to return to work part time, and eventually sought U.S. citizenship. At his citizenship interview, 15 years after he first entered the U.S., Immigration determined in a few minutes time that he had intentionally mislead the U.S. embassy when he failed to disclose the whereabouts of his wives and all 11 of his children – a clear case of fraud- they said, still intent on post-9/11 conspiracies, and he should face deportation for it. He never got a chance to explain that he had not written down all of his children because he did not know if they were alive or dead – having been separated from them for years prior to entering. After more than two years of litigation to try to deport someone who all in the courtroom agreed had never been arrested, had been tortured for his faith in his home country, and who had worked almost every day of his life in the U.S., we won, and his deportation charges were dropped. We reapplied for his citizenship and he passed his test without a single mistake.

He was so happy he wanted to help me with anything he could. It just happened that I was looking for a client to testify before the MN Senate tax committee to help low-income immigrants and refugees apply for citizenship. His testimony, some Senators said, was the highlight of the session. He was sworn in before a federal judge later that same day with his twelve children and newly sworn-in citizen wife supporting him.

I have also felt utter heartbreak when I have lost cases over the years for fathers like Zohair from Lebanon and Mahad from Somalia. Men I came to know were decent and honorable yet for whom our laws allowed no leeway in considering their U.S. citizen children and years of life in the U.S.

I am in the middle of a case that pulls at my notions of justice and fairness again. It has come to epitomize the need for humane immigration reform. It is for a man I’ll call Juan, who was arrested in the recent raids in Worthington. He is a father to three children, two U.S. citizens, the oldest is 17 and in kidney failure. His crime for which he was arrested and is now facing deportation, was to enter the U.S. illegally and to be working with fake papers at the Swift plant on the day of the raid. He is a good man. He told me of his first attempt to enter through the desert. On that occasion, he was traveling with a group and an older woman became weak and could not go on. He insisted that they had to call the border patrol to save her life even if it meant that they would all be returned to Mexico. That is what they did and she was airlifted to a hospital – they were deported. He eventually made it back to the U.S. and worked for years throughout the Midwest in meatpacking plants. He married a U.S. citizen and although they tried to file paperwork to make him legal, they did not receive good advice and their attempt was rejected. He worked in the plant doing dangerous, dirty work in order to earn money to take care of his sick son. At the time of the raid, he also was preparing to donate his own kidney to him to keep him alive. Then the raid happened. Fortunately, due to these extraordinary circumstances, we were able to get him off the plane that was set to deport him less than 48 hours after his arrest. Unfortunately, he remains in deportation proceedings – we have asked for a humanitarian consideration to stop his removal – but we have not had any decision yet from immigration. His transplant operation has not happened yet because they have no insurance and because Medicare will not pay for transplants for non-citizens.

WE MUST CHANGE OUR IMMIGRATION LAWS
Very recently this administration has dedicated 2 or 3 times the resources to investigating and arresting persons in the U.S. illegally. This has forced me to add a new client to my work -- one like I have never represented before – that is, advocating for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. It is not clear if we will win, at times the odds seem so stacked against us. It is also not always clear if we will like what we get if we do win. Legislative change is the only thing, however, that can slow down the tragedy that it feels like I witness on a daily basis. Through new legislation, we must slowly begin to correct our current system that not only denies the humanity of the clients I mentioned, but on a much grander scale, declares that 12 million people are illegal and must be removed from their homes and jobs with no real due process, no defenses, AND has set into motion the machinery of the state to try to do just that.

Let me be clear in this house of faith, that it is our current broken immigration system that is responsible for the fact that millions of people, attracted by jobs that will feed their families, have no option but to enter the U.S. without permission. And then once they are here and employed and producing for this economy with some of the lowest unemployment numbers in recent memory, and facing a crisis of retiring baby-boomers who will leave the workplace in droves, they also have no way to affirmatively legalize their own status. There is neither a legal way for these workers to enter the U.S. nor a way for them to become legal once here. I ask you, how absurd is it for us to call their entry and work under this system the illegal act?

Humane immigration reform must occur this session to stop raids like we experienced in Worthington. ILCM has worked in Worthington for the last 11 years, doing intake there once or twice a year. On December 12, 2006, ICE (immigration) arrested 230 people in Worthington and nearly 1,000 more in 5 other cities in the biggest immigration operation in recent history. Almost all of the 230 were deported within days, most of them without ever seeing a lawyer. I relocated to Worthington 2 days later and we have spent the subsequent 6 months listening to one tragic story after another of families torn apart. Fathers were taken from U.S. born children only two weeks before Christmas. Mothers and children had no money for rent, no option of returning to work, and no hope – only fear that kept them from coming out of their homes for days. Unfortunately, we have seen ICE’s actions ratcheted up further in operations in Willmar, Austin, Albert Lea, Owatonna, and we will no doubt see it continue to other cities and towns. Without some legislative change in Washington, I am afraid my practice in immigration law will become something dedicated to fighting fear, despair, and combating racism. Gone will be the ideal that America is a lofty city on a hill, with its torch of freedom and equality held high, welcoming the poor and huddled masses.

Immigrants are who we have always been, who we are, and who we must welcome to remain strong, vibrant, and to renew ourselves. We as members of St. Joan of Arc, as Catholics guided by the 2nd Vatican Council’s Preferential Option for the Poor, as the wealthiest of all nations, must act to change our immigration laws to make them more humane, respecting families, human rights and worker’s rights, and due process.

I humbly request that you take action and help us pass immigration reform before August of this year. The debate in the Senate will begin again soon. In the House, Keith Ellison and Luis Gutierrez will hold a public town hall meeting at Washburn School on June 23rd on their bill they have introduced, called the STRIVE act. Find out what your elected official’s positions are on immigration reform and urge them to be fair and to act now – there are some, like our Senators and Jim Ramstad, John Kline, Michelle Bachmann and Collin Peterson, who especially need to hear from constituents. Please stop at the tables outside the church and in the hallway and pick up materials, educate yourselves and talk to your friends and family, sign yourselves up for action alerts to call your senators and representatives – then do it faithfully. We must educate ourselves about the justice of this issue. There is no doubt in my mind that we as a country and as a community of citizens of the world where almost all of our families began as immigrants, still have room here for the human beings who are today’s strangers seeking shelter. Change will not happen without you adding your voice. In the words of the beautiful song of Leon Gieco that I started with, I only ask God that we be not indifferent to the suffering.

Thank You.