In Ken Burns documentary The U.S. and the Holocaust he tells the story of the SS St. Louis. In 1939 the ship left Hamburg, Germany with over 900 Jews on board. The were headed for Cuba where they were planning to seek asylum. When they were forbidden from seeking asylum there, the ship went North to the coast of Florida hoping the United States would accept them. They were turned away, and sent back to Hamburg. Through negotiation with other Jewish groups, the refugees were finally taken in by the UK, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. When the Nazi’s overtook much of Western Europe, many of these asylum seekers were sent to concentration camps.
This event, along with other displacements in the aftermath of WWII, resulted in the 1951 Refugee Convention which establishes the definition of a “refugee” and as well as the principle of “non-refoulment”—meaning a refugee should not be returned to a country where their life is threatened. The United States adopted the primary tenets of this convention with the Refugee Act of 1980. To request asylum, a person must be in the United States or make the request at a port of entry. Furthermore, the law stipulates that a person in the United States has one year to make an asylum request. Matthew Soerens, Vice President at World Relief, explains it this way:
Under longstanding U.S. law, an individual qualifies for asylum if they can reach the United States (on a temporary visa through an airport or by reaching the border) and can demonstrate that, if returned, they face a well-founded fear of persecution on account of their race, religion, political opinion, national origin or membership in a particular social group. Notably, the law offers these protections to those who can reach U.S. territory “whether or not at a designated port of arrival.”
The majority of migrants crossing the southern border are not trying to evade border patrol, they cross the border so they can turn themselves in and claim asylum. In doing so, regardless of whether their claim fits the criteria, they are following asylum law. The current situation at the border is the result of an outdated and overwhelmed asylum system. The solution is immigration reform that makes it easier for people to come to this country legally, while rebuilding the asylum infrastructure.
Back to Bonhoeffer
The German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer opposed the scapegoating of the Jewish people by the Nazis. He opposed the German protestant church when they capitulated to antisemitism and Nazi ideology. In the end, he gave his life opposing Nazi ideology; he gave his life in solidarity with those who were scapegoated— crushed beneath a politics of hate.
Christians who engage in the political process are free to vote for candidates on the right and the left. In fact, our system of government needs two healthy parties to debate alternative solutions to the problems facing this country. What should never be tolerated—on the right or left— is the scapegoating of a group or groups of people through racist rhetoric. In After Ten Years, Bonhoeffer asks “Who stands firm?” Who is willing to take responsibility, not out of allegiance to a party or ideology, but to God’s call upon our life given to us through our concrete neighbor.
Only the one for whom the final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all these, when in faith and sole allegiance to God he is called to obedient and responsible action: the responsible person, whose life will be nothing but an answer to God's question and call.