Southern California immigration and refugee task force hears from PDA

Susan Krehbiel and Omar Salinas Chacón update Presbyterians concerned about the current state of the southern border

by Mike Ferguson | Presbyterian News Service

Photo by Greg Bulla via Unsplash

LOUISVILLE — Gathered online Wednesday night for their quarterly meeting, members of the Presbytery of the Pacific’s Immigration and Refugee Task Force heard from the Migration Accompaniment Ministries of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. Nearly 30 people attended the meeting to hear from PDA’s Susan Krehbiel and Omar Salinas Chacón, as well as local advocates.

“This is a people who act for justice, and we lift up all we do to you,” said the task force’s Wendy Gist during an opening prayer. Gist is the Mission Advocate for Hunger, Poverty and Peacemaking Issues for the Presbytery of San Gabriel and the Presbytery of San Fernando, which also participate in the task force.

Krehbiel, PDA’s Associate for Migration Accompaniment Ministries, identified PDA’s role as two-fold: it’s a ministry of relief and response to national and international disasters, and it provides aid to refugees and displaced persons, including resettlement.

“Omar and I are focused on the work with displaced persons,” she said, which worldwide numbers about 117.3 million forcibly displaced people, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ Global Trends report.

Ever since the 225^th General Assembly (2022) declared it, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been a sanctuary and accompaniment church, Krehbiel noted. “Providing safety, security and hope to people new to our communities is part of our identity as the PC(USA),” she told the task force. “Our place as a church institution of predominantly Western European heritage is the act of accompaniment and solidarity.”

“Names matter,” she said, displaying in her presentation words in the current political lexicon, including “detainees,” “invaders,” “illegals” and “threat to national security.” Such words “are often used to distance ourselves from our neighbors,” Krehbiel said.

When we’re talking about people seeking asylum — people on the move — “it’s helpful to remember they are families, asylees, neighbors, women and children,” Krehbiel said. “The more we can normalize the people coming to our borders, the easier it is to build that empathy.”

Displaying a map highlighting border-crossing locations between Texas and California, Krehbiel said that “on any given day, you will find differences from one spot to another.” Each month, Chacón and Krehbiel participate in a call with people providing services along the border. Most recently, they learned that the number of asylum seekers in San Diego is down, and fewer people are being released to the streets. “We consider that pretty good news,” Krehbiel said.

In El Paso, Texas, numbers are low enough that “they’re telling [volunteers], ‘You can have a break. We don’t need shelter volunteers right now.’” A few hundred miles away in Del Rio, Texas, service-providers are seeing up to 100 people a week, especially from the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Colombia, including families and pregnant women.

The number of border apprehensions goes up and down each year, Krehbiel said, with about 1.7 million in 2021 and 2022, about 2.5 million last year, and fewer than 2 million so far this year.

“The statistics we choose to look at matter,” she said. “We often see a rise in the fall, a drop at Christmastime, and then in February the numbers tend to go up again.” The varying figures “sometimes has to do with changes in U.S. policy at the border, and other times with changes in their own countries,” she said.

U.S. policy changes in May and June further limited opportunities for asylum at the U.S. border. One change to the CBP One mobile app now requires asylees to proactively make the claim that they’ll face harm if they return, rather than the government asking if the asylee fears harm upon return. “That’s the shout test,” Krehbiel said. “If you don’t shout out, you won’t have access to asylum.”

Chacón highlighted two upcoming campaigns for which people can volunteer, both with ties to the Interfaith Immigration Coalition. One is the Let Asylum Seekers Work campaign; the second is the This is Welcome campaign. Whichever way the Nov. 5 election turns out, “We are trying to get the new administration to adopt a more compassionate policy,” Chacón said. “We need to counter messages with messages of our own.”

“Our faith compels us to do that,” he said of the coalition, which includes 15 faith traditions. “Our faith is not monolithic.”

Coalition members are also working to mitigate against Operation Lone Star, Texas’ response to what Gov. Greg Abbott calls a “border crisis.” The state’s response has included installing razor wire and deploying the Texas National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety to the southern border.

“Migrant advocates call it racial profiling and unconstitutional policing,” Chacón said, adding most of the people prosecuted since the policy was enacted in 2021 have been U.S. citizens, and most arrests have been for trespassing.

“We are working on a toolkit to help congregations talk about Operation Lone Star and how to advocate against this law,” Chacón said.

How Presbyterians can help

Chacón suggested people on the call work with “refugee-serving organizations” on needs that include housing, financial support and advocacy. “A lot of you are already doing this work, especially advocacy,” Chacón said. “Your legislators need to hear from you about what’s happening on the ground. If all they hear is the negative press, they will vote against migrants.”

“The strongest thing we have learned to do is share the stories of people who do come,” Krehbiel said.

The Immigration and Refugee Task Force is a partnership of the Presbytery of the Pacific and Presbytery of San Gabriel’s Immigrant Accompaniment Ministry. The task force is guided by PC(USA) policy statements that call for just and humane immigration law and policies.

Additional resources from Presbyterian Disaster Assistance are here, here, here and here.