A Heart-Chilling Republican Christmas Story

At least baby Jesus was warm and dry, unlike homeless refugees at the US border.

 

By Emma Goldman
Immigration Correspondent

EL PASO, Texas – It's Christmas in America and around the world.  If you don't remember what is being celebrated, here's a report from this Luke guy, who claims to have inside knowledge:

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)

To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. 

Luke 2:4-7.

It's damn cold in the hills of Judea in December and the family was fortunate to have a warm place to give birth to their son, Jesus.  From this story Christians derive the mitzvah (perhaps they have another word for it) of caring for those in need, especially those traveling in cold or slowed by pregnancy or infants.

Speaking of poor families trapped in the cold and seeking shelter, the Border Report tells us:

Churches and nonprofits that help asylum-seekers in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas are rallying to assist thousands of migrants before temperatures plunge below freezing.

Officials in South Texas also are opening up warming centers to help asylum-seekers who have been released from the Department of Homeland Security but have nowhere safe to go as a frigid blast of Arctic air is expected to move into the Rio Grande Valley on Thursday.

By the way, here's the weather in El Paso: 

So it's no wonder that Catholic organizations, aided by local governments and other institutions of good will, are mobilizing to shelter homeless refugees who have crossed the border into the U.S.:

Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez told Border Report that officials are working to convert the Mercedes Civic Center into a warming center.

“There’s been a coordination between all the different partners dealing with this matter,” Cortez said. “I’m concerned but the good thing is we have Catholic Charities and a large group of Catholic churches and centers and we’re trying to prepare.”

At the same time, other Catholic relief agencies, such as the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), inspired by what they believe are Catholic values, are providing legal counsel to penniless refugees seeking to establish their legal right to asylum:

CLINIC’s Catholic identity infuses every aspect of its work—how it is governed, who it serves, how it treats its clients, the way it works, and why it does the work that it does.

CLINIC was founded by the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops and is governed by a board comprised of a majority of bishops, along with women and men whose professional backgrounds provide helpful context for our work. CLINIC serves as a legal support agency for diocesan immigration programs.

Second, the kinds of cases and advocacy positions taken by the network—involving family reunification, protection of the persecuted, empowerment through work, authorization, legal status and citizenship—have their roots in Catholic social teaching.

Third, CLINIC views newcomers in their full human dignity, not solely from a legal service perspective....

Fourth, CLINIC takes the Catholic view that advocacy draws its legitimacy from service. Service allows advocates to give voice to newcomers, not to speak “for” them.

Fifth, CLINIC has adopted a principle of Catholic social teaching—subsidiarity....This allows CLINIC to focus its limited resources on needs that local programs cannot meet. In this way, CLINIC seeks to leverage maximum legal representation for low-income newcomers.

Sixth, the CLINIC safeguards the rights and promotes the dignity of all newcomers. The network does not distinguish among prospective clients based on race, religion or ethnic background. 

These gratifying humanitarian efforts are surely worthy of praise from anyone with an ounce of human decency or empathy, and certainly from anyone who proclaims themselves a Christian, right?

As others have pointed out, though, there's a world of difference between Jesus and Republican Jesus.   Following the teachings of Republican Jesus, the supposedly Christian Governor and Attorney General of Texas (the latter under criminal indictment) have threatened Catholic relief organizations and anyone else with the temerity to provide aid and succor to sojourners at our doorstep:

Faith-based groups in El Paso rejected claims by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that they may be aiding unauthorized border crossings. Hope Border Institute and Jesuit Refugee Services defended their work, calling the accusations a threat and danger to their work.https://t.co/K4LfplqzpY

— CLINIC (@cliniclegal) December 20, 2022

Threatening Catholic volunteers who have chosen to spend their holidays feeding, sheltering, and representing freezing refugees with criminal prosecution – it's Christmastime in Texas:

In announcing his call for an investigation, [Texas Gov. Greg] Abbott cited reports that NGOs assisted in illegal border crossings near El Paso, and that those same NGOs and some in other border sectors also orchestrated other border crossings “through activities on both sides of the border.”

“In light of these reports, I am calling on the Texas Attorney General’s Office to initiate an investigation into the role of NGOs in planning and facilitating the illegal transportation of illegal immigrants across our borders,” Abbott said, adding that he is ready to craft legislative solutions aimed at solving the border crisis and the role of NGOs that Paxton’s office proposes.

[Texas AG Ken] Paxton swiftly replied to Abbott’s call saying he will launch the investigation, and pledging to take action against organizations found violating the law.

Rupert's yellow press sez it's a crisis

Now maybe crooked Attorney General Ken Paxton thinks that indicting Catholic relief workers is no big deal.  After all, he's been under indictment for five years and he's nowhere near facing a jury. 

The organizations aiding refugees, perhaps having read about other Catholics who suffered even worse fates for acting on their religious principles, were undaunted:

El Paso faith-based immigration organizations were quick to rebuke the claims, and the investigation.

Dylan Corbett, executive director of the HOPE Border Institute, said...that Abbott’s call for an investigation “is a vile threat to all of us on the border working to pick up the pieces of a broken immigration system, to create legal pathways for vulnerable migrants and to offer a dignified welcome.”

Fair and balanced CNN says so too.

“This intimidation is beneath the dignity of public service,” he said.

Not in Texas.

Of course, state interference with the lawful practice of providing representation to asylum seekers, a right guaranteed by federal law, violates the Supremacy Clause as well the civil rights of refugees. If only the United States Department of Justice had a division devoted to protecting civil rights, something might be done about this obviously illegal intimidation.

You won't hear much about this outrage in media coverage of the looming “crisis” at the border, which crisis consists of the specter of harmless refugees crossing into El Paso without safe temporary accommodation until they can arrange transport to their intended destinations.  The crisis is supposedly that they are sleeping on the streets, within eye-shot of white Texans.

Axios for the crisis hat trick!

Since the illegal and patently fraudulent invocation in 2020 of spurious public health grounds to bar asylum seekers by the bigots and plug-uglies of the Trump Administration, there has been an ongoing crisis at the border.

The Mexican side of the border, that is.

That's where desperate refugees, unable to cross, are living out in the cold on the streets of cities like Tiajuana and Ciudad Juarez.  Their suffering over the past two years does not constitute a “crisis”because white Americans don't see it.

Suffering south of the border: not a crisis!

And the suffering on the Mexican (non-crisis) side of the border is by no means limited to mothers and babies camping out in the freezing cold.  It's so much worse, according to Human Rights Watch:

Last week, I spoke to Amelia H. (not her real name) in Juárez, Mexico. She told me that after she entered the United States in September, US border agents stopped her and sent her back to Mexico just before midnight, even though US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) claims it doesn’t expel people after dark. They ordered Amelia to cross despite her pleas to make the trip in the morning. A group of men raped her on her way to a shelter in Mexico that night.

This horror was foreseeable and all too common. I’ve interviewed others who endured rape, abduction, or other violence after US border agents expelled them. Human Rights First has documented nearly 10,000 attacks on people summarily expelled. 

Republican Jesus must be so proud.

This Christmas Eve, it's freezing outside across the country, with a few annoying exceptions (like California).  But no matter how blustery it is outside, it's nowhere near as cold as the hearts of Republican anti-immigrant bigots.

Feliz Navidad. 

 UPDATE, December 25:

Today as then, Jesus comes into a world that does not welcome him (cf. Jn 1:11), that rather rejects or ignores him, as we do so often with foreigners and with the poor. Let's not forget the refugees, the marginalized, people who are alone, orphans and the elderly, prisoners.

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) December 25, 2022