Immigration policy Archives

Cover image of "The Asylum Seekers" by Cristina Rathbone

The Asylum Seekers, Cristina Rathbone. Broadleaf Books (ISBN: 9798889832010) 2025.

Summary: A priest lives with asylum seekers in Juarez, learning about what they fled, the community they built, and their faith.

Why would you leave home, community, livelihood? Why would you make a costly and perilous journey to the Mexican-American border for the uncertain opportunity to apply for asylum? This is a mental exercise I wonder if many on the American side of the border have ever engaged. So I ask, what would it take for you to do this in your situation.

Cristina Rathbone, an Episcopal priest, lived for close to a year in 2019 and early 2020 on the border, spending her days with the growing community of asylum seekers in Juarez. The Rio Grande and a bridge were not all that separated them from El Paso, and the United States. She learned why they came there. In general, they were fleeing gangs and cartels threatening their lives. In some cases they’d already lost a family member. Others had been threatened with death. Some wanted to save their children from choosing between life in a cartel and certain death. Up to 80 percent of the women had been sexually assaulted during their journey to Juarez. Many had spent fortunes on the journey.

Rathbone, a former journalist, had completed a parish assignment in Boston. Her mother’s family had immigrated from Cuba, and so she had some sense of what was stake, and felt it was time for her to see what she could do, and more importantly, what she could learn. In Boston, she had worked in a people-centered, community-based ministry among the homeless. And that is what she set out to do in Juarez. Very quickly, she came to struggle with the futility of her efforts. So many people. And border officials, acting for higher powers, who wanted to admit as few as possible. She wanted to flee until climbing one of the mountains to pray, and looking across the valley, she spotted a silhouetted statue of Jesus.

“Oh my God. Not to stay would be to run away. This is what I knew, all of a sudden: not to stay now would be to run away from him. And tell me, please, what in the world would there be to do after running away from Jesus?”

And so she stayed. Listened to stories. Organized children to collect trash. Set up a school with several other volunteers. Eventually, it was suggested she accompany families up the bridge to the border checkpoint where they could request asylum. It was thought her presence might help some get through. More often, though, they heard that there was no room (even though she later learned there were ample facilities sitting empty). And so she walked back down the bridge with those families. Presence.

She chronicles how a mass of refugees formed a community. Selected leaders. Established a list of asylum seekers, an order the community followed. Shared resources. Organized celebrations. Then as some succeeded in gaining entrance, others stepped up to lead.

Rathbone describes the pressure to set up big programs and how funders, and even her host bishop struggled to understand the person-centered ministry she engaged in. She writes:

“Small, real things. Small, real things. This is what I kept trying to remember and to trust. Not big, impressive things but small, real things are the way to love–with, through, and for the other. Small not because we can’t be bothered but because we are small ourselves.”

Often, her struggle was with herself. For example, she wrestled with her anger toward immigration officials representing an intransigent government. Or she despaired as family after family returned, especially after a more stringent HARP program. This program centered around a “credible fear” interview. If asylum seekers could not convince interviewers of the danger to their lives, the U.S. refused asylum and sent them back. And they could not re-apply. Consequently, they either had to return to the danger they fled, or try to find refuge with relatives living elsewhere.

Rathbone’s narrative is one in which she is kept, sometimes barely, by the scriptures and prayer–and the resilient faith of asylum seekers. Eventually, she gets help from the diocese, so that she never makes the march up the bridge unaccompanied.

Reading this narrative saddens one with the lack of generosity and humanitarian feeling of our country, which has only worsened. Far from the caricatures of asylum seekers as criminals, the people we meet on these pages are people I want as neighbors. They show determination, resilience, courage, integrity, and faith. Rathbone’s account offers a different vision of asylum seekers–one that looks beyond the challenges of settlement to the gift asylum seekers can be to a country. Along with that, her account reminds us that central to ministry is simply being the presence of Christ with people. Without that, we are just brash, arrogant Americans.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book for review from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers Program.

Immigration: Tough Questions, Direct Answers, Dale Hanson Bourke. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014

Summary: Third in “The Skeptics Guide Series” and like others in the series provides a concise overview of basic facts about immigration and discusses the challenges of immigration policy in the United States.

The United States is a land of immigrants. Most of us can trace our roots back to forebears who came to the United States either to escape persecution or simply to find a better life. And yet immigration is highly contentious, between those who appeal for others pursuing a dream of a better life, and those concerned to protect our borders and restrict the numbers of people who may enter. Immigration has always both enriched our life and economy as a nation, and posed challenges for how we relate to new cultures and ethnicities.

Dale Hanson Bourke’s guide is not written to advocate but to inform. She begins with defining terms including “immigrant”, “undocumented”, “out of status”, “refugee” and more. One helpful distinction she makes is that there are no “illegal” immigrants. Under our system of law, it is not illegal to be a person and all enjoy equal protection under the law. Persons may commit illegal acts. For those who either have entered the country illegally, they are “undocumented” or “out of status” if they have overstayed their visa. She then turns in Chapter 2 to larger issues beginning with citizenship. One of the interesting facts in this section is that unlike most European countries and many others in the world, the U.S. grants “birthright citizenship” or recognizes citizenship on the basis of jus solis (“right of the soil”) as well as jus sanguinis (“right of blood”). This provides a strong incentive to have a baby on American soil. In this chapter, she also looks at larger issues of immigration around the world including refugee issues, xenophobia, the use of national identity cards and other issues.

Chapter 3 considers how we are indeed a nation of immigrants, how immigrants enter, different kinds of visas, “green cards” or Legal Permanent Residency, naturalization including our citizenship oath (quite interesting!) and even some of the vagaries of what defines a U.S. citizen–a question that has come up in presidential elections since the U.S. president must be a natural born U.S. citizen–the question being what constitutes “natural born”. Chapter 4 looks at the current issues surrounding immigration, particularly the numbers living here illegally (approximately 11.7 million in September of 2013) the problems of crime and drugs–most undocumented immigrants actually avoid crimes because this is cause for immediate deportation. I found out that U.S citizens are under no obligation to report those in the country illegally and that doing so might place one in legal jeopardy in certain circumstances. One of the challenges is how long the “line” is to enter the country legally–20 years for people in some countries.

While immigrants, including concentrations of undocumented immigrants in some states, do place added burdens on the system, they contribute immensely as well. One interesting fact in Chapter 5 was that 40 percent of the Fortune 500 companies were started by an immigrant or child of an immigrant. Google, eBay, Yahoo, Sun Microsystems, and Intel are a few examples. Equally, remittances from immigrants equal global foreign aid and so play a huge role in assisting the economies of the countries from which immigrants come. Many of those in the U.S. illegally are paying taxes and contributing to Social Security and Medicare without the opportunity to benefit from these programs.

Chapter 6 focuses on who the immigrants are and how many come into the U.S. under different categories and in what states the most immigrants are living (California, New York, Texas and Florida are the top 4 and account for over 55 percent of the immigrant population). Chapter 7 concludes the book considering the need for immigration reform. Fundamentally, our immigration system is a highly confusing system of sometimes self-contradictory laws that require an immigration attorney to sort through–something many immigrants cannot easily afford. It is a system that does not necessarily protect our borders from those who would do harm, and often fails to show mercy to separated family members. Furthermore, it makes it very hard to retain highly trained talent from other countries who would be willing to work for American companies and universities.

The value of this book is that it replaces misinformation with good information. It may not tell us the polices for which we should advocate, but it helps us cut through the misinformation we are fed in our public discourse, sometimes from those who are charged with making that policy. And it does this in a book of under 150 pages, written clearly and attractively with illustrations, charts, and images.