Immigration & Welcome, Past & Present
By Stephen Reeves
A few weeks ago my wife, Deborah and I took our daughter on her first trip to New York City to celebrate her tenth birthday. Though I’d been to the city many times before, almost every other trip was short and tied to work or another occasion. With more free time and my daughter in tow, I was determined to take a boat ride to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I’m so very glad we did.
The first stop was Liberty Island. I knew nothing about the museum there but found it to be both informative and moving. It not only tells the story of the statue, but it helps visitors stop and consider the American ideals it represents.
When speaking on immigration and border issues, I usually begin by trying to put the current situation on our southern border into historical context. I often quote the famous poem by Emma Lazarus, cast in bronze and hung inside the pedestal, as a famous expression of our American ideal of welcome and refuge for the persecuted:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
In the museum I learned that the idea of a monument presented by the French people to the United States was first proposed by Édouard René de Laboulaye, president of the French Anti-Slavery Society. His original purpose was to commemorate the upcoming centennial of U.S. independence, the perseverance of American democracy and the liberation of the nation's slaves.
While it is fairly hard to see and too rarely noticed, the statue by Frédéric Bartholdi depicts Lady Liberty standing on broken shackles symbolizing the end of slavery. But Lazarus’ poem and the millions of immigrants passing by her in the years to come eventually overshadowed its original meaning and intent.
The museum did not shy away from controversy, including contemporary critics of the statue. Two quotes stuck out to me:
In erecting a Statue of Liberty embodied as a woman in a land where no woman has political liberty, men have shown a delightful inconsistency (Lillie Devereux Blake, president of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association, 1886).
Shove the Bartholdi Statue, torch and all, into the ocean until the 'liberty' of this country exists for the colored man (The African American-owned Cleveland Gazette, November 27, 1886).
It is difficult to stop and celebrate progress when we’ve yet to live up to our highest ideals.
After a walk around the statue, we boarded the boat to Ellis Island which first became an immigration inspection station in 1892, just six years after the Statue of Liberty was dedicated. There we spent time at the National Museum of Immigration. From 1892 to 1952 over 12 million immigrants entered the U.S. through Ellis Island. As we toured the museum and watched a film with footage from over one hundred years ago, I was struck by the similarities and the differences faced by the refugees coming to our southern border.
Just as today, those who came through Ellis Island faced a difficult journey. Panama’s Darien Gap is as harrowing a passage as the hull of a ship in the Atlantic where many immigrants were treated as cargo. Family separation was a real threat on Ellis Island, too. Instead of a policy meant to terrorize and discourage others, however, a family member could be denied entrance and sent back on the ship if carrying a contagious disease or declared mentally deficient.
Unlike those who came across the Atlantic, those coming to seek asylum at our southern border today face a complex, inefficient and confusing set of laws and regulations once they reach the US. As this recent New York Times article illustrates, the “United States’ borders were relatively open until 1917, which means that many people are Americans today not because their ancestors diligently followed any procedure but just because they showed up.” Since 1990, Congress has made no significant changes to our immigration laws. The result is that “in 2021 there were 11.8 million applicants vying for 55,000 visas allocated randomly. And then there are the 125,000 slots available through the refugee admissions program.”
The article explains how “coming the right way” is nearly impossible due to current visa backlogs that can have prospective immigrants waiting decades to over a century for approval.
Exhibits in the Ellis Island museum showed the frequent backlash to new arrivals. For example, a 1797 Massachusetts state law called for the return of paupers to their original towns or “to any other State, or to any place beyond sea, where he belongs.” Another display reminds visitors that “in 1882, Congress enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first federal legislation aimed at excluding a specific national group. At the turn of the 20th century, exclusion would be expanded to include all Asians.”
The museum also highlighted how our march westward to fulfill “manifest destiny” resulted in the displacement or massacre of so many native peoples. Our rapid population growth, much of it through welcoming newcomers, had devastating effects.
Our history is complex; competing instincts of welcome and exclusion continue. While we have a long way to go to live up to our ideals, Christians should always remember our higher calling from Jesus to welcome the stranger as if we are welcoming him.
Jesus’s calling was never meant to be easy to answer, and America’s ideals are not ever likely to be fully achieved. Visiting Liberty and Ellis Islands gave me the motivation to keep striving. Remembering our past and comparing it to our current reality helps us correct course so the trajectory points to a future we can be proud of.
What did the visit mean to a ten year-old girl? She loved the grand Registry Room where immigrants were processed on Ellis Island where two large American flags now hang. She made a connection to the welcoming ministries of Pastor Israel’s church in Piedras Negras, and Pastor Carlos’ church in Brownsville, two of our FSW partners she has visited and met migrants. She started asking questions about where our ancestors came from and who were the ones who made the journey for us.
No matter the century, people are coming in hopes of a better life. One day their American descendants will stop and give thanks for the dangerous journey they endured.