A couple weeks ago I found myself driving past snow covered farms in rural Ohio, slowing with my hazard lights on as I passed an Amish buggy, taking a right off route 39 and pulling into the parking lot of a white steepled church. The Holmes County Chamber of Commerce was gathering over breakfast and I was their speaker. The pastor of the host church found me a week earlier by a google search and reference from a local Christian college. He asked if I would talk about immigration and businesses and proceeded to tell me the hopes his county had for immigrant neighbors, the workforce needs, his passion for cross cultural ministry and more.
The National Immigration Forum has a corporate roundtable made of Fortune 500 companies who are with us on needing immigration reform as well as programs to help develop immigrant workers to reach their fullest potential. From banks to small businesses and farms, I had a great time with the folks of Holmes county who are leaning in to their need for more workers and asking questions about what is broken. One farmer, passionate about seeing more just policies and legal statuses available for the people who make their farm go, had a lot to say. She said that their farmworkers were “like family.” (Join me for calling for the Farm Workforce Modernization Act and a Restitution pathway for those who are here undocumented. So many people who bring us food to our tables desperately need these kinds of bills to pass. Our gratitude for food is a good motivation to call your Congress members today.)
Yesterday the Senate voted down a bill that had been hard wrought. It was what the House asked for in exchange for Ukraine support. It was bipartisan. Senator James Lankford helped craft a bill that offered mostly conservative asks, including the toughest rework of our asylum system and border security in decades and then …. A declaration of “dead on arrival” by House Speaker Johnson over the weekend, before he had read the bill, pulled back a bunch of votes in the Senate. Yesterday it didn’t pass. The end. It was maddening to watch.
While Congress is not being productive, their constituents are. We know the border is a mess. Yet I hear from evangelical pastors in Indiana asking how their church can host the migrants being shipped to Chicago. I am working with a group of Hispanic pastors in Cleveland to put on an Immigration Response event so that churches and Chambers of Commerce around Northeast Ohio can wrap their arms in welcome around these newcomers to our community. If you would like to help us figure out an emergency response network for the arrival of newcomers, we would love to have you. You’re also welcome to come learn a bit about why so many people are coming to our border, how they are ending up in Ohio and what some of the churches have been doing so far to welcome folks.
"No matter what happens with this bill, it cannot be the end of Republicans’ and Democrats’ courageous work together," Forum President Jennie said this week. "Americans need, and want, more."
The bill died. But we still need Congress to act and to compromise. It’s what they were elected to do.
Based on the actions of midwesterners, their welcome and problem solving I see in small towns, cities, and suburbs around the midwest, I couldn’t agree more. Americans want more. We also aren’t waiting for Congress to show up and be the kind of country we know we should be. We are little associations of people showing up.
A few months ago I was telling you stories about why asylum was important and mattered. I got completely derailed and took too long of a break from this new Substack.
I am going to continue that story and more with my next post and try to make these more often in 2024.
What would you like to hear about in the world of immigration?
“When you allow them to associate freely in everything, they end up seeing in association the universal and, so to speak, unique means that men can use to attain the various ends that they propose. Each new need immediately awakens the idea of association. The art of association then becomes, as I said above, the mother science; everyone studies it and applies it.”
Excellent Christy! Stay the course. You are NOT alone!