A perspective on immigration reform from El Salvador

I thought I would share with you all the letter I sent to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on immigration reform. The legislation the committee is working on is in my opinion preposterous and in-humane, to put it mildly. Being in El Salvador has really given us a chance to look at immigration issues literally from the "other side"--and the perspective is very different. Bishop Barahona says that no human being is "illegal," that all of us are citizens of the Earth, and should have the ability to move about it freely. Recalling Matthew 8:20 ("Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no where to lay his head"), he points out that birds, foxes, and little animals cross international borders freely, but human beings are not free to do so. The day before my friend Becky Noonan Heale got on the plane from El Salvador to the U.S. after my ordination, she was struck by the fact that she was doing something most of the people around us in El Salvador are not allowed to do.

Here are some other resources on immigration reform:
+A recent Episcopal News Service Article http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_72859_ENG_HTM.htm
+The website of No More Deaths in the Desert
http://www.nomoredeaths.org/

Here is my letter:

Dear Senator,
I am a 2005-2006 Fulbright grant recipient working on the subject of social justice and religion with the Anglican Church of El Salvador. I am also an Episcopal (Anglican) priest. During my six months working and studying in El Salvador so far, I have gained a unique perspective on Latin American migration to the U.S. There are the statistics: approximately 700 people a day leave this small country, which is the size of Massachucetts, to attempt to immigrate to the United States without documentation. They leave in hope of finding a job where they might make $6 an hour as opposed to $6 a day (if they were lucky enough to find work in El Salvador, which many are not). There is no one here who is untouched by immigration-- families spend years apart, without the freedom to travel and see one another. Then there are the personal connections: I experienced the angst that 700 families experience daily when a young woman from the church where I work set out with her two-year-old daughter to re-join her husband, who is working without documentation in the U.S. I was aware of the conditions of fear and deprivation that undocumented immigrants live under in the U.S. from my work with the immigrant community there. Living in El Salvador I have learned about the incredible dangers that migrants, especially Central Americans, face just to arrive in the U.S.: migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras must travel for days through Mexico without documentation-- they run the risk of capture and gross human rights abuses at the hands of Mexican police-- before they must face the well-known perils of the deserts, rivers, and trains at the U.S. borders, where people die daily, for the "crime" of desiring a better life.

I understand that the immigration bill under consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee would in fact make it a felony to enter or remain in the U.S. without documentation-- increasing the atmosphere of fear that people live under who have already risked their lives and split up their families to come to the U.S.-- not to steal, not to commit terrorist acts, but simply to work, at jobs most people born in the U.S. would never do, and to earn a wage. I also understand that this legislation would criminalize humanitarian assistance to undocumented immigrants. In that case, Senator, I have to tell you that my faith will force me and many others in the churches to become criminals. In Matthew 25 Jesus commands his followers to give food to the hungry, clothing to the naked, to tend to the sick and to visit prisoners. We will continue to do these things, caring more for those in need and the state of our souls than for the Federal Government's legislation. In that case we would take our places in the prisons, like Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss, volunteers with No More Deaths, who are facing 15-year prison sentences for medically evacuating immigrants in critical condition in the Arizona desert.

U.S. immigration law needs to be reformed. You have the opportunity to make things better for people who have come to the United States seeking a better life, like your ancestors. Please do not make them worse.

Sincerely,
The Rev. Amy Denney Zuniga
2005-2006 Fulbright Recipient
Iglesia Anglicana Episcopal de El Salvador

Elections Day El Salvador

International observer team from Iglesia Angicana de El Salvador ready to head to the polls

Left: A man, Jose Humberto, was denied the right to vote because of the poor condition of this identifying document, even though his name, picture, birthdate, and other vitals were in the elections roster.

Left: Jose Humberto's info posted on the board

Above: Interviewed by the Co-Latino. According to a Site Boss, 4 others were denied suffrage at this site alone (the last name begins with "A" site for the Soyapango area) because of the poor condition of their DUI's, the Documento Unico de Identidad.

"The Anglican International Elections Observer Team," consisting of Amy and our friends Jeff and Noah, after a perfunctory certification and training process on Friday, headed out on Sunday to observe the process of Salvadoran democracy in Soyapango, where members of Amy's church would be voting. There were 11 different voting sites in Soyapango, one of the largest municipalities in the greater San Salvador area, and we stuck to one-- the site for people whose last names begin with "A". The process went a lot more smoothly than I anticipated-- our site had about 40 different tables, each table with a multi-partisan group of officials each with their job to do in assisting the citizens assigned to that table to vote (including checking the roster, taking the citizen's DUI, passing DUI's and grease pencils to the other officials, marking the citizens thumb black once he or she has voted, and making sure the citizen deposits the municipal and legislative assembly ballots in the corresponding pink or yellow box, etc.). The counting process was even more interesting, as each table went through the procedures for counting their ballots, invalidating unused ballots, and filling out the official "acta" stating how many ballots were received for each party.
In some ways the process is more simple and direct than voting in the U.S. (especially in California, with our obscure ballot initiatives and voting for officials of whose exact responsibilities I'm often unsure), and participation is definatley better-- this election had a better than 50% voter turn-out. In some ways, it is more nit-picky, like many things in El Salvador that have to do with bureacracy and procedure (see the photos of the man who was unable to vote because his DUI was in poor condition). And in some ways, it felt much more significant, because of the recent struggles and lives lost to obtain the level of democracy that does exist here. (Although Noah reminded me that universal suffrage has not always been a given in the U.S., either.)
The results? ARENA, the "offical" party of the president, which was in control during the war and has had control of the presidency ever since, and the FMLN, the party of the former guerilla, were neck-in-neck, both in the municipalities and in the National Assembly. The hotly contested mayorship of San Salvador is still being contested-- Bush-Gore style-- and we are awaiting the official results. I did feel like our vigilant presence at the "A" site in Soyapango made some small difference-- an inlegal ARENA flag behind a table official was removed, our opinion was listened to in debated cases, and somehow people got the message a little more deeply that the process of democracy matters-- not only to Salvadorans, but to their friends in the rest of the world as well.
-posted by Amy and Vince

Right.: All three of these contested on the elections rosters votes were allowed.

Above Left: This vote, apparently for ARENA, was thrown out. Voters are supposed to place an X on the flag of the party they wish to vote for, which lead to some comical advertisements where the advertiser's party flag was crossed out in the ads.

A young FMLN supporter