Sanctuary in the Storm
Beginning work this week, I did not see the storms coming.
you have to understand
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land — Warsan Shire
I expected to be stressed by meetings and remembering my co-workers’ names, not national disasters. In a time of planned immigration raids and hurricanes, it feels like neither the water nor the land are safe for so many people. I woke up this morning to the real-time map of Hurricane Irma swallowing islands where people have no place to escape the death-dealing damage.
I want to close my eyes and pretend it is a dream, but the reality seeps in.
I heard this poem, “Home” by Warsan Shire, on Tuesday morning at First Unitarian Universalist Church. The community gathered to support Alirio as he entered Sanctuary to fight against his deportation. Originally from El Salvador, Alirio Gámez was forced to flee his meaningful life and family. He is choosing to live within the confines of the church until his deportation is stopped because, in his words,
Yo busque Santuario porque tengo el derecho a la vida. Me vine de El Salvador porque sufrí la violencia que se vive en mi país. Esta es la razón por la que estoy aquí en Santuario…Como ser humano, tengo derecho a vivir, y que mi vida sea respetada.
I sought Sanctuary because I have a right to life. I came from El Salvador because I suffered the violence that my country lives with. This is the reason that I am here in Sanctuary. As a human being, I have the right to live, and that my life be respected.
It was surreal to learn, at the same time that Alirio spoke, that the Trump administration would revoke the few rights afforded to undocumented persons by ending DACA. The DACA program provided temporary (and highly selective) permits for 800,000 undocumented youth who pay to be able to attend school, work, and pay taxes. At a press conference led by young students and professionals that afternoon, I heard the testimonies of Dreamers in Austin, who only know the United States as their home.
My parents were the original dreamers… This is the place I call home. I am not going anywhere. I am going to fight for my future just as much as my parents fought for my life. — Vanessa Rodriguez, UT Student, 19 years old and aspiring lawyer
I choked back tears thinking of the hundreds of thousands of families who will struggle to survive without this program. I felt anger thinking that this revocable piece of paper draws the line between life and death for Dreamers and their families.
I thought about parents putting their children in boats, in trucks, in the hands of smugglers to cross the desert, in homes in a foreign land that promised opportunity. They are more than numbers, and the $200 billion the end of the DACA program will cost the nation (CATO Institute). They are our neighbors, friends, and loved ones. In the words of my friend Carlos (who I love to quote),
We forget the human aspect of the subject in discourse: the one with real lives that depend on the whims and qualms of people seemingly only interested in reelection, the one with several thousand families dreading the day they say goodbye, and the one with crossed fingers and prayer hands in hope of understanding.
In the midst of the storms this week, I learned the story Alonso Guillen, a young radio host from Lufkin, Texas who bought a boat to rescue strangers in Houston, two hours away from his town. He risked his life to help others, knowing the water was safer than the land. He was the answer to people’s hands folded in prayer.
Alonso was one of the 141,000 Texas residents who received DACA. He was one of thousands of people who call Texas their home, who know this place better than any other, and yet who have no way to become equal members of this flawed nation.
no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear saying — leave, run away from me now
i don’t know what i’ve become but i know that anywhere is safer than here — “Home”
Alonso’s courageous act to help others ended tragically in the storm taking his life, as his boat capsized and he drowned. His father found his body taken by the overbearing waters. He died alongside his friend Tomas, also born in Mexico and raised in the US.
At the same time that Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the ending of DACA, Alonso was buried in Lufkin. Sessions claimed the program ended to ensure our nation’s security, while people like Alonso die to protect their neighbors. “Alonso Guillen died a hero, if not an American citizen,” Lacy Johnson writes. Trump’s cowardly decision of ending DACA threatens to tear apart the Hurricane-swept city, and indeed our nation, exacerbating the flood waters.
I am reminded this week that while Jesus is known for calming the storm (Mark 4:35 — 41), it is also true that his disciples feared for their lives. He reminds them that they are not alone; he accompanies us.
When the waters and the lands are ruled by chaos, I look to God for another way. Where might we envision a world where children do not need to flee their homes, where men do not drown in our streets? In the prophecy of Isaiah, when rulers and kings govern their cities with justice,
“Each one will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land” (Isaiah 32:2)
Until the day when our city is a refuge from the storm, I look to Alirio’s leadership to call the community together as the protective sanctuary. I think of Vanessa’s courage to follow her parents’ dreams and fight for her future in this country. I remember Alonso’s heroism to bring the boat to those who have no safe place to land.
After week one, I now know to be ready. We are to be sanctuary in the storm.
To donate to those applying this month to renew their DACA permits for the next two years by October 5, check out online fundraisers.
