You and I have responsibility for the immigrant and the refugee

The 2024 political cycle has turned up the rhetoric around immigration and the southern border.

Most of the conversation is stuck in abstract ideas that provide emotional content to superficial political slogans. Consequently, issues that have very little to do with migrants and refugees (fentanyl, for example) are weaponized to score political points. Meanwhile, the lives of Afghans, Ukrainians and other refugees are put on hold as politicians debate the minutia of policy. Both sides — Democrats and Republicans — are to blame for politicizing the lives of millions of people, refusing to take the necessary steps to enact immigration reforms to alleviate the problem.

I want to propose a different way forward on the immigration issue. It comes from the writings of (hopefully) soon to be saint Dorothy Day. For those who don’t know Dorothy Day, she was a 20th-century journalist and activist who converted to Catholicism. Her care and concern for the poor and the immigrant, once grounded in her reading of Karl Marx, was transformed as she became a conservative Catholic.

The Communist Manifesto gave way to the Sermon on the Mount and the blessings proclaimed to the poor and the peacemaker. From the gospels she discovered a new way of life grounded in a love for neighbor that reflects the gracious gift of God’s love and grace shown to us in Jesus Christ. What Dorothy Day discovered in Catholic social teaching is a call to take responsibility for our brothers and sisters — for our neighbors — because every human being is created in the image of God and endowed with dignity, not because of anything they do or don’t do, but simply because they are loved by God.

For Dorothy Day, caring for the immigrant and refugee in this country is not the responsibility of the government, nor is it the responsibility of the church. Caring for the immigrant and refugee is our responsibility — yours and mine. She recognized that when we leave care for others to institutions, it’s too easy to abdicate our responsibility for our neighbors.

This is how we get to the current rhetoric around immigration — we fail to take responsibility for real people, human beings created in the image of God. As a result, immigrants and refugees become dehumanized political slogans that provide a cheap way to win votes. Day’s personalist approach means getting involved with real people. This certainly isn’t easy, but for Day, it’s what we’re called to do.

For Christians, Christmas is the time we remember how God became a human being born in a manger. Christmas does not allow us to remain in abstract ideology precisely because God became a flesh and blood human being. The baby in the manger shows God’s love, not for abstract humanity, but real flesh and blood human beings. Dorothy Day reminds us that we are called to do the same.

Regardless of whether you are religious or not, Christmas provides an opportunity to bear witness to the dignity of our neighbors. It is a time for us to leave behind the abstraction of political rhetoric and embrace our immigrant neighbors.

There are many ways to get involved — begin by reaching out to your immigrant friends and neighbors to hear their stories. Contact local nonprofits to learn about specific needs. Sign up to help teach English classes or gather a group of friends together and sponsor refugees who need a place to start a new life (learn more at welcomecorps.org).

If politicians and religious leaders lack the courage or the will to care for immigrants and refugees, then we’ll do it ourselves. That’s what Dorothy Day would have done.

Jason Lief is a professor at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa, and a community mobilizer for the National Immigration Forum. He writes a Faith and Immigration newsletter at jasonlief.substack.com. You can email him at jlief@bbbimmigration.org.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Go beyond immigration rhetoric, consider our own responsibility