Author Archives: Lisa Swanson

Scroll to the bottom of this post for links to event schedules.

Pro-immigrant media organization America’s Voice is facilitating a national month of action called Tour of the Faithful. 17 events organized by local religious groups will take place in cities across the nation over the next month, calling for reform to the United States’ broken immigration system.

The first event on the Tour was an interfaith prayer vigil held at the Ohio State House in Columbus on Wednesday, Sept. 10th. I attended together with 75 others from a diverse array of faith traditions.

Rev. Mark Belletini of First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus offered a prayer, along with twelve other faith leaders, including Cantor Jack Chomsky of Congregation Tifereth Israel, Dr. Asma Mobin-Udin of CAIR Ohio, and Rev. Steve Hammond of the American Baptist Church. Standing under a banner that read, “Moral Voices Unite for Immigration Reform,” prayer leaders called for humane, just immigration reform and an end to raids and deportations.

For me, the vigil was an extremely powerful experience. English, Spanish, and Arabic were spoken, and faith leaders often began their prayers without identifying either the God to whom they were praying or the faith they represented.

Many vigil attendees also took part in a two-day Summit which taught tools and techniques for immigration reform advocacy. The Summit, which First UU Church of Columbus and the UUA Washington Office helped organize in conjunction with the Interfaith Immigration Coalition and local Midwest groups, exceeded my expectations. As the Summit drew to a close, participants shared their impressions. Many voiced a feeling that they were inspired and well-equipped to return to their communities to begin organizing and taking action.

The Prayer Vigil and Summit were two of the most amazing and effective experiences I have had during my time at the Washington Office.

Check out the Tour of the Faithful Schedule to see if any events are taking place near you. Or, see locations of all events at a glance on the event map.

Raids and deportations are often viewed as workplace and legal issues. But there are some very good reasons that we should also view raids and deportations as mental health issues.

In October of 2007, the Urban Institute and National Council of la Raza (NCLR) released a 109 page report entitled, Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America’s Children. According to the report, there are almost 5 million children in the United States with at least one undocumented parent–and because of our nation’s broken immigration system, any of these children’s parents could be detained or deported at any time.

The psychological consequences of having a parent suddenly taken away can be devastating, especially when children are too young to understand why their mother or father is suddenly gone. There is also a risk of children “personalizing” their parent’s disappearance; a child may believe that he or she is somehow responsible, or that their parent’s sudden disappearance is connected to his or her own behavior.

The resulting stress, guilt, grief, and anxiety can harm a child’s mental and emotional well-being. Schoolwork, behavior, and relationships may suffer. Paying the Price details the consequences a workplace raid had for one 8 year-old boy.

For one eight-year-old boy, stress associated with his mother’s arrest manifested in health problems. Although his mother was released on the evening of the raid, he was unexpectedly picked up from school by a friend. While in the friend’s care, the boy overheard a conversation about the raid and cried for a couple of hours until his mother arrived home. Following his mother’s return, he found out about her possible deportation and experienced major separation anxiety. He was described as nervous and clingy after the raid, even though he had never displayed such symptoms before. He experienced repeated nightmares from which he sometimes awoke with uncontrollable shaking and loss of breath. He was taken to the hospital twice, and doctors diagnosed him with major anxiety disorder resulting from post-raid stress.

The UUA’s Washington Office for Advocacy in Washington, D.C. and First UU Church of Columbus in Ohio have been working with the Interfaith Immigration Coalition, (an interfaith team of national faith advocacy groups based in D.C.), and Midwestern faith groups to plan the Midwest Interfaith Immigration Summit.

The two-day Summit will take place Sept. 10 – 11, 2008, in Columbus, Ohio. Its goal is to bring faith-based leaders and advocates in the Midwest together to work towards educating and mobilizing their communities in support of fair and humane immigration reform. Workshops will cover a variety of topics, including state and federal legislation, Lobbying 101, Raids, Detention, and Worker Justice, and much more.

I will be attending to represent the UUA, and I encourage Midwestern UUs who are interested in immigrant rights & immigration reform to attend. The UUA is offering a few scholarship to cover tuition ($95 before August 15th). If you are interested in attending and/or applying for a scholarship, or have any questions about the Summit, please contact me at lswanson@uua.org.

Register online at: http://hias.org/midwest-interfaith-immigration-summit

If you would like to post a flier in your congregation’s place of meeting, a printable PDF is available here: http://www.hias.org/files/immigration/SummitSavetheDateFinalUpdated_2.pdf

Principal Coordinator: Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)

Sponsored By: American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, Church World Service, Franciscan Action Network, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Mennonite Central Committee, NETWORK, Ohio Council of Churches, Ohio Hispanic Coalition, Peace and Justice Support Network of Mennonite Church USA, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, Sojourners, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations,Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society, United Jewish Communities, & World Relief.

Endorsed By: Friends Committee on National Legislation, Interfaith Worker Justice, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS).

Made possible in part by a grant from the Open Society Institute & The Carnegie Corporation of New York.

This is actually old news, but I just saw a picture of a billboard erected almost a year ago by the Immigrant Justice Advocacy Movement (formerly the New Sanctuary Movement Coalition of Greater Kansas City), and wanted to share it here. Picture credited to KMBC – TV of Kansas City.

Last year, about twenty churches in the Kansas City, Missouri, decided to form a coalition in support of immigrant families as part of the New Sanctuary Movement (NSM). Among these was All Souls UU Church, members of whom were present September 25, 2007, when over a hundred people gathered to announce the coalition.

One UU church member, Angela Ferguson, was quoted by the Kansas City Star as saying, “Our goal is to speak out against making immigrants the scapegoats of all problems. If you can’t get that off the table, then we can’t have a logical debate about how to fix the situation.”

I think the Immigrant Justice Advocacy Movement found the perfect words to convey that message.

Picture credited to Freddy Rhoads, originally posted at http://nsmkc.blogspot.com/

For more information:

Click here for a Unitarian Universalist guide to the New Sanctuary Movement, or check out our webpages on Immigration at UUA.org.